Evil Verisign SiteFinder
Verisign has announced that they will resume their SiteFinder service, which essentially directs unknowing users to combined “buy me” and “find similar sites” web page for unregistered domain names. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a form of DNS contamination — injecting what are really false DNS A-records (name-to-IP address mapping) into unregistered domains at the root level (since Verisign controls the root dot-com and dot-net name servers). Unsuspecting web browsers could find themselves searching the web, thinking a web site has closed down, or gawd knows what, when all they’re really done is made a domain in the URL.
The biggest concern is that Verisign originally launched the SiteFinder service without any notice. It just started happening. They voluntariliy stopped the service after complaints (to ICANN), but are now announcing that people find it convenient and they will resume the service with little notice.
It’s sick — ICANN should strip Verisign of their control over the root servers. This should have been done long, long ago, before Verisign bought Network Solutions.
