McLaughlin Defends Site Finder As 'Innovation'

simeonbeta2 writes "Mark McLaughlin, Senior VP at Verisign, has an editorial up on news.com. McLaughlin casts the debate over sitefinder in terms of 'innovation' versus the status quo and threatens that stifling 'innovation' will lead to a weaker internet." There's more -- read on below.

psimeonbeta2 continues:"Additionally (shades of Darl) he suggests that an anti-capitalism animus is behind the resistance to sitefinder. This despite the known problems that sitefinder caused and despite the fact that breaking the DNS standards may have constituted a breach of contract on Verisign's part. Resistance, he concludes, must be due to some sort of techno-religious fervor.

While Verisign's chutzpah certainly doesn't rise to fiaSCO levels, I find the similar tones in spinning the issues at hand to be truly disturbing. Not only did Verisign screw us by changing how the internet works at a fundamental level, now they purport to be irritated that we didn't thank them for the favor! At least in this case the good guys(cherish this moment, ICANN!) won."

Re:I kind of like SiteFinder

[Kufat]

Internet Explorer can do that with MSN search and it usually works well enough. (Too bad you can't use google instead...or can you? I don't have their toolbar since I don't use IE.)
Site Finder, however, takes EVERY invalid domain request from every kind of program on every platform, and breaks the DNS standard, with screwing over the other .com registrars as an added bonus.

Re:I kind of like SiteFinder

[Jonathunder]

Sometimes I misspell URLs and I actually *like* having a service that attempts to find the site I'm looking for.

So set your browser to do that. Most of the popular browsers will, and you can even chose your search engine.

No need to force that behaivior on every user of every Internet service. The Internet is not (just) the web.

Re:lets think of it neutrally

[gdarklighter]

It's called Google [google.com].

Re:I kind of like SiteFinder

[David M. Andersen]

You can use google, believe it or not. Search sidebar (Ctrl-E), Customize (Alt-Z or toolbar option on top of search sidebar), Autosearch Settings.

Re:Innovative wildcards?

[Alan Hicks]

rm -rf /*

Dock yourself one sys-admin point for unneccessary use of a wildcard.

No you didn't...

[RdsArts]

You just paid someone else to register it with them.

Ah, the joys of a monopoly.

Re:Utter Crap

[Trepalium]

ICANN's contract with Verisign said they could only hold 5,000 domains themselves. It's a lot, but perhaps not unreasonable. This modification by Verisign effectively gave them a very large number of domains (limited only by the maximum allowable size for a DNS query). Although, honestly, I was amazed at Verisigns self restraint on not putting a "Buy this domain" link on every sitefinder page. Guess they decided they couldn't get away with that... Not yet, at least.

Re:I kind of like SiteFinder

[nolife]

You can change IE's default to Google with this [google.com]

I mainly use Mozilla and I use the Google toolbar from here [mozdev.org].

Moved domains...

[Ratface]

The SiteFinder fiasco was the final impetus for me to remove my last couple of domains from NetSol's hands to a more internet friendly domain registrar. Apart from saving me money in the process I'm pleased I finally got off my ass and voted with my wallet!

No, no, no, No, NO! Baka!

[Jerk City Troll]

their autosearch solution was innovative* (* not sure if it was their idea). Without changing how the internet fundamentally works, they chose to render a failed DNS lookup as something more friendly and functional than a limited, rather useless OK popup.

They took something that worked to a well-established specification that's been around for decades and broke it. That is not good nor is it innovative.

But don't take my word for it. I will defer to this guy [slashdot.org] to elaborate and this guy [slashdot.org] to explain how stuff broke.

As many people have mentioned, you do not alter the functionality of core, Internet functionality in the global domain at the behest of some fools from marketing. If you want to make a change to how things work, propose a change or start your own network. Don't fuck with a service that billions of people use and depend on.