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Re: [ga] Verisign rushes to roll out typo-squatting system on Monday

  • To: Dan Steinberg <synthesis@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Subject: Re: [ga] Verisign rushes to roll out typo-squatting system on Monday
  • From: George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2003 23:17:38 -0700 (PDT)
  • Cc: ga@xxxxxxxx, discuss-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
  • In-reply-to: <3F65452E.40904@videotron.ca>
  • Sender: owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi Dan,

--- Dan Steinberg <synthesis@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> what existing technical standards are you suggesting are being broken
> by 
> the "abusive monopolist" ?

See:
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/lynn-message-to-iab-06jan03.htm

"As you can see, VGRS makes wild guesses about what the user wanted,
some of which are very clearly impossible."

"The DNS is not supposed to be a best-guess service, yet VGRS has
turned .com and .net into this..."

"VGRS should not be allowed, through its monopoly on the .com and .net
gTLDs, to destroy the coherence of the DNS for its own short-term
profit. ICANN should demand that VGRS immediately stop giving incorrect
answers to any query in .com and .net, and should instead follow the
IETF standards. If VGRS refuses, ICANN should re-delegate the .com and
.net zones to registries that are more willing to follow the DNS
standards."

I'd like to emphasize the part "VGRS immediately stop giving incorrect
answers to any query in .com and .net".

The big question is, which law firm will be first to file a
class-action lawsuit against VGRS, for the mass-typosquatting, and
traffic-monetization? If we recall the example of the Register.com
class action settlement:

http://www.register.com/zurakov/notice.html

it's the lawyers who will make out like gangbusters. Since usually the
first lawfirm gets the bulk of the settlement cash, I doubt it will be
long for someone to step up to the plate....trademark lawyers will have
a field day over this one....

Additional technical issues are mentioned at:

http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/2003-01/msg00050.html

"They get back no MX, but an A record, pointing to this farm.  Most
mail servers will go ahead and try the A record, getting connection
refused.  The mailer will keep retrying for several days, all the while
these backing up in the queue."

Suppose you're a corporation, and a customer or prospect mistypes the
domain in the email address. Instead of failing immediately, the mail
server will keep trying to deliver that mail potentially for a week,
before ultimately being deemed non-deliverable. The client will be
confused, thinking your mailserver is down, or that you're ignoring
them, or that you're a terrible company and should take your business
to a competitor who is more responsive (and they might miss the
"bounce" message a week later, caught by their spam filters perhaps,
whereas they would have noticed the bounce had it been immediate). Not
a great "user experience".

Many of those "spam traps" which contain bogus email addresses will
start taking 7 days to fail, instead of failing immediately. Some ISPs
better get larger hard disks and connectivity budgets....

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/



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