Eclectic Echoes

GoDaddy Suing Verisign--DNS primer

Got an email from GoDaddy (who I use to register and manage a couple of domains) this evening explaining in pretty good layman’s terms why they have decided to sue Verisign–also recently known affectionately as VeriSlime. In a nutshell they are suing Verisign over the “SiteFinder” service which as they (rightfully) claim misdirects, misleads, costs ecommerce and visitor supported sites and damages attempts to combat spam. GoDaddy has a separate suit to stop the Verisign Wait Listing Service, another highly controversial scam that Verisign has been operating. I really wish ICANN had more enforcement powers or sharper teeth. Well actually I wish we had followed the vision of Jon Postel.

GoDaddy’s press release and the actual legal complaint are PDF and available here.
For some commentary on the “SiteFinder” hijacking scheme:

• All your Web typos are belong to us
• Verisign DNS change broke my HP printer
• The Power To Bind
• Internet Architecture Board report on implications of SiteFinder
• Delegation Only
• ICANN advisory, and request for Verisign to voluntarily suspend SiteFinder service
• Verisign says, go stick it in your root server to ICANN
• A Verisign internal letter: Users ‘vote with their mouses’ for SiteFinder

Someone recently asked me in an email why the big deal over the Verisign tactics. I’ll address that in an essay(rant) this weekend.