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VeriSign Inc. today used its power as the operator of the "dot-com" and "dot-net" Internet domains to redirect a torrent of valuable "junk" Internet traffic away from Microsoft and America Online into its own proprietary search page.Once VeriSign finishes installing the system virtually any Internet surfer in the world who enters an incorrect Internet address ending in .com or .net into their browser will be funneled into the Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet giant's newly christened "Site Finder" service. VeriSign expects to complete the installation before midnight Monday.
Full Article [bizreport.com]
Although when I installed the Google toolbar I set my pc to show google results for any address bar typo. I didn't give anyone permision to alter that.
Big thumbs down to verisign :(
Mack.
In the meantime, sitefinder is just another entry
to add to my hosts file. If you have a spare ip
address, just point the entry at a default error
page of your own design on your server. Mine
just says *ad*. This way the browser does not
stall waiting to make a connection.
Given that verisign is returning addresses for
what should be a dead zone, it seems only fair
that AOL/MSN modify their dns servers to return
whatever they want for siteseer.verisign.com.
++++
Both companies (AOL & MSN) said that traffic from incorrectly typed Internet queries was not a major source of revenues.
Sigh. Another case of PPC fever. PPC is the lame "out of the box" bandwagon these internet companies are jumping on, and they seem to think that grafting it on to any offering will earn them 100's of millions of dollars.
Bah!
What they are doing with PPC reminds me of what marketers did to the word "turbo charged." It went from being relevant for autos to being applied to laundry detergent.
Stephen
