Toolkit

Story: Networks evade VeriSign's SiteFinder

Posted by: Joe Alagna (Tuesday 7 October 2003, 3:42 PM)

Verisign's responsibility could be compared to a telephone company's. If my customer attempts to call me but misdials by one digit, they either get the wrong party or they get a recording that tells them that this number is not connected and that's all they should get.

How fair would it be if the telephone company answered that misdialed phone call (which was intended for me) and asked the caller if they would rather go to one of my competitors? That is what Verisign tried to do and that's not right.

By implementing sitefinder, domain registrants would be forced to buy all possible misspelled versions of their domain so as not to send business to competitors.

Here's an example. Someone wants to look at Electronics and types in "BestBy.com". Instead of getting an error, they now get a page that contains links to other electronics suppliers. Why would I want that as a registrant? It's not right.