And You Should Be Left Alone to Run the Internet as You See Fit, Why?
by John Paczkowski
Posted on November 5, 2007 at 4:18 AM PT
Verizon’s Advanced Web Search service was, in the words of the company, “designed to help you quickly find the destination Web site you were seeking.” But apparently that’s true only if the destination site you’re seeking happens to be Verizon’s own search-engine page.
Some subscribers to the company’s FiOS fiber-optic Internet service are finding themselves redirected to Verizon’s own advertising-laden search-engine page when they mistype a URL or query a nonexistent Internet site–even if Verizon’s search isn’t set as their default. Verizon says it’s only trying to help, and to be fair, it does offer subscribers–who never “opted in” in the first place– the chance to opt out by changing the DNS settings in their routers.
Still, it’s all a bit too reminiscent of VeriSign’s Site Finder, a service that hijacked people who misspelled domain names and sent them to a Web directory full of advertising. Which, given the hue and cry over Net neutrality, isn’t the sort of memory you want to be conjuring up as a major telecom provider.
Comments
Earthlink did this at least a ago, and it’s annoying. They also provide alternate DNS settings that you can change in your router, but that’s not exactly easy for Joe Q. Public to do.
Posted by Geoff Davis at November 6th, 2007 at 11:12 am