VeriSign Search Engine?

minstrel · #1 (**permalink**) 02-10-2004, 10:21 AM

VeriSign Reconsiders Search Service
Washington Post
David McGuire, Staff Writer
Monday, February 9, 2004

Excerpt:

Quote:

A company that plays a key role in managing the Internet's domain system is considering whether to restart a controversial search service that makes money off Web users' typos, a move that threatens to reignite a debate over who controls key segments of the Internet.

Stratton Sclavos, chief executive of VeriSign Inc., told investors in a conference call last month that the company might relaunch its "Site Finder" service as early as April.

The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., manages the dot-com and dot-net Internet domains, giving it a uniquely influential role in how the online world operates. Resurrecting Site Finder would be an unfair advantage over search service competitors and an abuse of its privileged position, the company's critics have said.

Site Finder, which was launched in September, redirected people who type nonexistent or inactive Internet addresses to a search page created by VeriSign. The page offered links to similarly named Web sites as well as advertisements from companies that paid VeriSign to be listed on the page. The directory competed with similar search services from America Online and Microsoft.

Many of the technology experts, companies and nonprofit groups that oversee the Internet's infrastructure complained that Site Finder caused Internet services to malfunction, including filters that block spam e-mail and Internet browsers designed for non-English speakers.

VeriSign shut the service down in October after the group that runs the Internet's addressing system, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), threatened the company with fines and legal action.

The problem, critics have said, is that given VeriSign's role as the operator of the dot-com and dot-net registries, the Site Finder service causes repercussions throughout the Internet. VeriSign tells computers, wireless phones and other products that use the Internet where they can find dot-com and dot-net addresses -- and when an address does not exist. Redirecting incorrect Web site queries would force technologists to reconfigure hundreds of programs and devices to be compatible with Site Finder.

Read complete article here.

Nargule · #2 (**permalink**) 02-15-2004, 05:01 AM

Quote:

"Site Finder was not controversial with users, 84 percent of whom said they liked it as a helpful navigation service," said Tom Galvin, VeriSign's vice president of government relations. "We continue to look at ways we can offer the service while addressing the concerns that were raised by a segment of the technical community."

Galvin said that the continued opposition stems from "an ideological belief by a narrow section of the technological community who don't believe you should innovate the core infrastructure of the Internet."

"innovate the core infrastructure" - sounds like someone is using the bullsh** generator.

The DNS system is anything but innovative. It is a simple distributed-database system (no bullsh** generator, I got that out of a book) that allows an user to quickly resolve a hostname to an ip address - and that is all it is meant to be.

Even if I bought the quote above, how is adding a wildcard for *.com and *.net "innovating the core infrastructure of the Internet"?

In VeriSign's Response to IAB on Site Finder Service, they address some issues which the IAB has brought forward. They don't, however, provide any real justification for why this "service" needs to be implemented other than the BS they splash around in the conclusion to the whole thing:

Quote:

Conclusion
VeriSign is fully committed to a secure, stable and interoperable Internet that will continue to innovate and grow in a responsible manner. It is important to recognize that striving to make the user experience the best it can be without sacrificing stability and security is an objective that benefits us all.

I understand their "benefit". Traffic directed to them where they can sell services and ads.

What is the user's benefit? In IE I have an option to search from the address bar and I have it turned off because it annoys the hell out of me.