As of Sept. 15, Verisign has added a wildcard to the .com and .net top level domains. What this means in layman’s terms is that nearly every web address you type will go somewhere. Try typing in a bogus web address (ending in .com) and you will most likely be directed to sitefinder-idn.verisign.com, which is a Web site containing a search engine.

You may ask, “Why is this such a bad thing? A search engine is useful, isn’t it?” Well, Verisign, the company that developed this scheme, is using the power of its subsidiary company, Network Solutions, to hinder competition and glean profit from unsuspecting Internet users under the mask of doing something for the common good.

Verisign is in direct competition with a number of companies who have Internet presences (most noticeably domain name registrars and search engines). Let’s say the naive user mistypes the address for Google, (www.google.com) a popular search engine. Is it reasonable they should end up with a search engine from another company?

Secondly, Verisign would be hard pressed to come up with an argument they have done this for the public good. The Web site at sitefinder-idn.verisign.com gives no error message indicating that the Web site you were trying to access does not exist; it is simply a search engine. Were this done in the public interest, certainly there would at a minimum be a prominent message telling the user they may have mistyped. The existence of “Sponsored Results” on the SiteFinder page is additional evidence that the motivation behind this is not the public interest, but rather additional profits for Verisign.

This in no small way defeats the public nature of the Internet. While it is true that the Internet is comprised of a great number of private networks, one of the things that was great about it was that no one company controlled all its access points. While this may still be true with physical access, it is no longer true in the case of domain names. Every time you type a Web site address, if it does not exist, you hit Verisign.

Verisign has abused and continues to abuse its power to glean a profit from naive and unsuspecting Internet users. Verisign needs to be stopped.

Aaron Hurd

Junior

Computer Engineering