Should VeriSign Be Allowed To Profit From Mistyped URLs And Redirects?

Money, the root of all evil, is at work again in the Internet world, this time at VeriSign, the company that controls the popular .com and .net domain names.

For those of you that have not been following the controversy, VeriSign, which contracts with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to manage domain registration, recently leveraged that management for financial gain and as a result, many believe, is responsible for increasing the amount of spam we all receive.

ROBERT FALETRA Can be reached at (516) 562-7812 or via e-mail at rfaletra@cmp.com.

Historically, users that typed incorrect URLs found themselves timing out. But now a Web surfer typing an incorrect .com or .net URL is sent to Site Finder, a VeriSign site that offers tips for finding the intended destination. The site suggests alternative sites and links to ad-sponsored sites as well.

That isn't all. According to sources that have spoken with CRN reporters, some spam filters apparently are being fooled by the Site Finder service. Prior to Site Finder, spam that was not from a legitimate domain was blocked by many filters and killed on arrival. But now, because of this redirecting by VeriSign, some spam filters are having difficulty identifying illegitimate e-mails and subsequently are letting them through.

Whether this is true, I don't know, but I can attest to the fact that the number of spam in my own mailbox is way up as of late.

Solution providers,who, of course, are dealing with the fallout from the increased spam their customers are receiving,and even ICANN have blasted VeriSign's move as contributing to instability on the Web. ICANN asked VeriSign to stop the service last Friday, but as CRN reports, the company has flat-out refused (see story on page 5). Could it be that VeriSign thinks it has a monopoly,even if it's a contracted one,and it intends to do whatever it pleases as a result? You'll have to decide that one.

Before you do, though, consider what ICANN, the quasi-government body that contracted domain management, said in a statement about this last week. ICANN said VeriSign "appeared to have considerably weakened the stability of the Internet, introduced ambiguous and inaccurate responses in the [Domain Name System], and has caused an escalating chain reaction of measures and countermeasures that contribute to further instability."

'While I'm a big believer in less regulation and increased competition as the best route to an efficient market, I also believe that anyone with monopoly status bears a closer watch and deserves to be more highly scrutinized.'

That doesn't sound like ICANN is happy about the situation.

The search engine and portal companies that are most impacted by all this have remained largely out of the debate, but many believe they are fuming behind the scenes.

One small search engine firm has even filed suit.

While I'm a big believer in less regulation and increased competition as the best route to an efficient market, I also believe that anyone with monopoly status bears a closer watch and deserves to be more highly scrutinized and, when necessary, regulated.

It's hard to determine VeriSign's long-term intentions. In the end, it's about money and the desire to grow the business. I have no statistics on this, but my bet is the number of registered domain names is shrinking as renewals come up and companies that had registered hundreds of URLs drop those they have no intention of ever using.

So perhaps VeriSign, which signed up to manage all this, is finding that the business model it thought came with a certain amount of guaranteed recurring revenue isn't quite what it expected. To compensate, VeriSign is trying to be creative, but, in the process, it's going to catch some serious heat. Take a look at the talkbacks connected to our related online stories to get a taste of it.

Make something happen. I can be reached at (516) 562-7812 or via e-mail at rfaletra@cmp.com.