As of a little while ago (it is around 7:45 PM US Eastern on Mon 15 Sep 2003 as I write this), VeriSign added a wildcard A record to the .COM and .NET TLD DNS zones. The IP address returned is 64.94.110.11, which reverses to sitefinder.verisign.com. What that means in plain English is that most mis-typed domain names that would formerly have resulted in a helpful error message now results in a VeriSign advertising opportunity. For example, if my domain name was ‘somecompany.com,’ and somebody typed ‘soemcompany.com’ by mistake, they would get VeriSign’s advertising.
(Via ‘Dragonhawk’ on Slashdot via Jeremy Zawodny)
This isn’t new. the .nu TLD has been doing this same thing for years. Still, I’m glad I’m no longer a customer of Verisign, they have far too much control over .COM and .NET, and ICANN should do something about this.
They won’t, but they should.