October 5, 2003

Verisign signs off

I looks like Verisign’s plans to take over the web have been thwarted (at least temporarily) by ICANN. Since September 19th, if you made a typo while trying to connect to a website ending in .com or .net, you would be taken to a search page controlled by Verisign containing links to paid advertisements, rather than receiving an error message. While this may not seem like a big deal, many saw it as essentially the first step in plan to control all unregistered web space. It also caused all sorts of problems for the average internet user, who was confused by recieving a page that had nothing to do withthe site they were trying to access. ICANN ordered Verisign to cease and desist from this practice by 6 pm PST yesterday until the ramifications can be assessed. It seems they have done so; when I type in an unregistered domain name, such as doingfingers.com, I receive an error message an am not taken anywhere. This is a good thing. The Internet belongs to everyone, not to Verisign, and definitely not to the companies tht advertise on it.
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panther Well, I broke down yesterday and ordered Panther. I will have a lighter wallet, but I’m a sucker for new software. I’m hoping that it will be athe