[afnog]Fwd: toronto star by Geist on VeriSign wildcard

[Adiel AKPLOGAN <adiel at akplogan.net>]

>The Wall Street Journal
>(Copyright (c) 2003, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
>
>
>Monday, September 22, 2003
>
>
>Technology & Health
>
>
>Internet Overseer Calls for VeriSign To Shelve Service
>By Nick Wingfield
>
>The nonprofit group that oversees portions of the administration of the
>Internet asked VeriSign Inc. to suspend a new service that exploits the
>typographical errors Web users make as they are navigating the Internet. The
>Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, issued a
>statement late Friday that cited "widespread expressions of concern" about
>the technical effect of the VeriSign service on Internet use. Icann called
>on VeriSign to voluntarily suspend the service until technical reviews can
>be completed.
>
>A VeriSign spokesman didn't return a call for comment.
>
>Last week, VeriSign of Mountain View, Calif., introduced the service, dubbed
>Site Finder, which steers users who attempt to reach nonexistent Web
>addresses to a site operated by VeriSign. The company is able to take
>control of the traffic because it operates the master list, or registry, for
>Internet addresses ending in .com and .net. The company said it designed
>Site Finder as a navigational aid for Web users, but it also receives
>revenue from the additional traffic through relationships with Internet
>search engines that guide users to Web sites.
>
>The service has caused concern among network operators. They say it disrupts
>e- mail and other Internet applications. Some say it hurts the ability of
>Internet service providers to block "spam" sent from Internet addresses that
>don't exist -- a common technique for stemming the flow of junk e-mail.
>Internet service providers and software groups have developed patches that
>prevent the VeriSign service from working on their networks.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>----------------------------------------
>The Toronto Star
>Copyright (c) 2003 The Toronto Star
>
>
>Monday, September 22, 2003
>
>
>Business
>
>
>Verisign's tampering shows high cost of apathy
>Michael Geist
>
>Internet governance is an issue that relatively few people care much about.
>For the vast majority of Internet users, the technical and policy details
>that underlie the Internet matter little so long as their e-mail goes to the
>correct address and their domain name resolves correctly so that their Web
>site is accessible. While some people become engaged in hot button policy
>issues - domain name dispute resolution, privacy, and online elections to
>name three - for the most part policy decisions are largely left to the
>small cadre of technical and policy wonks who engage in heated online
>discussions and meet several times a year in a variety of exotic locales
>around the globe to continue discussions face to face.
>
>The general lack of enthusiasm for Internet governance has enabled those
>stakeholders with a direct financial interest, primarily domain name
>registries and registrars (the companies that sell and register domain
>names) and the intellectual property community, to seize significant control
>over the governance structure. Although the initial structure of the
>Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the
>California-based non- profit company charged with managing the domain name
>system, envisioned a meaningful role at the board level for individual
>Internet users, those visions are now little more than a distant memory as
>the voice of individual users has been steadily marginalized to the point of
>near silence.
>
>This gradual transformation has developed with the open acquiescence of
>governments worldwide. Although many governments, including the Government
>of Canada, profess to view the Internet as a critical resource, they have
>been content to leave this resource alone, governed by self-regulation with
>a bare minimum of intervention.
>
>Last Monday, at 10: 45 a.m., the danger of this laissez faire approach
>became evident to millions of Internet users. At that moment, VeriSign, the
>U.S. company that enjoys a monopoly over dot-com and dot-net domain name
>registration (there are competing registrars who sell domains to the public
>but they must all buy their domains from VeriSign), flicked a switch and
>launched a new service called Site Finder.
>
>Site Finder is designed to deal with a fairly common occurrence for many
>Internet users - the entry of an incorrect domain name, either because the
>domain is no longer active or because of a typo. While users are accustomed
>to receiving an error message when this occurs, VeriSign's Site Finder
>service now replaces the error page with a VeriSign page that displays
>advertising and a search tool.
>
>For VeriSign, this new innovation is potentially very lucrative. It
>estimates that dot-com and dot-net domains are mistyped 20 million times per
>day, resulting in an additional 20 million visitors to VeriSign's Web site
>daily and millions of dollars in additional revenue from advertising and
>click-through searches.
>
>For the rest of the Internet, the new service is potentially very damaging.
>Technical experts have repeatedly warned against tampering with the domain
>name system in this fashion, suggesting that it could result in significant
>instability for the network.
>
>The service has also had an immediate negative impact on fight against spam.
>Many ISPs use anti-spam tools that rely on the ability to discern between
>domains that exist and those that do not. Since Site Finder ensures that all
>domains resolve, even where they do not exist, that spam- fighting mechanism
>has been rendered inoperable for the moment (VeriSign pledged to develop a
>fix late last week).
>
>Domain name owners also feel cheated by the new system. As one domain name
>owner noted, many would not have opted for a dot-com domain years ago had
>they known that a system would later be established that would take a user
>elsewhere if they mistakenly enter a typo on the way to their site.
>
>Hardest hit, however, are individual Internet users. Twenty million times a
>day Internet users who inadvertently enter a typo now find themselves
>subjected to a lengthy VeriSign terms of use contract found on the Site
>Finder page. That contract includes provisions relating to user privacy that
>specify that the company has the right to collect statistics - information
>such as the user's IP address, page views, from which domains users come,
>and the browser settings installed on users' computers. In fact, Verisign
>now places a data identifying "cookie" on every user's computer that further
>assists with data analysis of users' activities.
>
>Despite the Internet community's near unanimous outcry against the Site
>Finder service, it quickly learned just how powerless it has become. ICANN,
>the supposed steward of the domain name system, took until Friday evening to
>issue a weak statement calling on VeriSign to voluntarily suspend the Site
>Finder service while it reviewed the matter. National governments, who were
>witnessing one company tamper with a public resource they had promised to
>protect, also did nothing, rendered powerless by their years of adherence to
>a self- regulatory policy that diminishes traditional regulatory oversight.
>In fact, last week the United States government extended ICANN's mandate
>over the domain name system for an additional three years, guaranteeing many
>more years of governmental abdication of leadership responsibility.
>
>Given the continuing concern over the Site Finder service, it is likely that
>technical fixes will be developed to override VeriSign's approach. It is
>also possible that VeriSign will drop its new service, either voluntarily,
>by order of a court (it was hit with a $100 million lawsuit over the service
>by a leading search engine late last week) or under compulsion by ICANN.
>
>Regardless of the eventual outcome, Internet users will look back on the day
>that Internet governance mattered and remember that they didn't.
>
>Michael Geist is the Canada
>
>Research Chair in Internet and
>
>E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa and technology counsel with the
>law firm Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP.

############################################
Adiel AKPLOGAN - Ingenieur réseau - RHCE / CSS
20, Boulevard Richard-Lenoir - 75011 Paris - FRANCE
Hm: +33 (0)1 49 23 02 87 | Mob: +33 (0)6 72 75 80 49
e-mail: adiel at akplogan.net | Web: www.akplogan.net  

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