VeriSign Suspends Site Finder Service

VeriSign Inc., the leading provider of infrastructure services for the Internet and charged with managing the .com and .net Internet name registries, recently suspended its Site Finder service because the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the Internet's domain-naming system, ordered it to shut down the service. (See related story in Internet Law & Strategy, “Netster.com Sues VeriSign Over Antitrust Claims” (September, 2003)).

VeriSign executive VP Russell Lewis says the company “reluctantly” suspended the SiteFinder service, even though it didn't have a “contractual obligation to do so.” ICANN's version of the facts is slightly different. According to a recent letter sent by ICANN to VeriSign, if VeriSign failed to comply with the order, ICANN would have “no choice but to seek promptly to enforce VeriSign's contractual obligations.”

The contretemps began when VeriSign began directing all mistyped URLs ' some 20 million a day ' to Site Finder instead of sending back the usual “no domain” or “page not found” error message. Web surfers who mistyped a URL were sent to a Site Finder page, where they would see a VeriSign controlled page that offered a search engine and links to what Site Finder guessed users were attempting to reach.

ICANN argued that the Site Finder service had significant adverse effects on the Internet, Web browsing, E-mail, applications and sequenced lookup services, and that it produced incompatibility problems with other services. Critics of VeriSign have alleged Site Finder produced problems with everything from spam filters to network printers.

For its part, VeriSign has disputed those allegations and says the SiteFinder service had little impact on the Internet. VeriSign contended that the company is in strict compliance with all Internet standards and the Internet Architecture Board.

VeriSign Inc., the leading provider of infrastructure services for the Internet and charged with managing the .com and .net Internet name registries, recently suspended its Site Finder service because the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the Internet's domain-naming system, ordered it to shut down the service. (See related story in Internet Law & Strategy, “Netster.com Sues VeriSign Over Antitrust Claims” (September, 2003)).

VeriSign executive VP Russell Lewis says the company “reluctantly” suspended the SiteFinder service, even though it didn't have a “contractual obligation to do so.” ICANN's version of the facts is slightly different. According to a recent letter sent by ICANN to VeriSign, if VeriSign failed to comply with the order, ICANN would have “no choice but to seek promptly to enforce VeriSign's contractual obligations.”

The contretemps began when VeriSign began directing all mistyped URLs ' some 20 million a day ' to Site Finder instead of sending back the usual “no domain” or “page not found” error message. Web surfers who mistyped a URL were sent to a Site Finder page, where they would see a VeriSign controlled page that offered a search engine and links to what Site Finder guessed users were attempting to reach.

ICANN argued that the Site Finder service had significant adverse effects on the Internet, Web browsing, E-mail, applications and sequenced lookup services, and that it produced incompatibility problems with other services. Critics of VeriSign have alleged Site Finder produced problems with everything from spam filters to network printers.

For its part, VeriSign has disputed those allegations and says the SiteFinder service had little impact on the Internet. VeriSign contended that the company is in strict compliance with all Internet standards and the Internet Architecture Board.