SoGoSearch didn't hijack
(Score:5, Informative)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 08, @09:38AM (#12467510)
SoGoSearch didn't hijack Google's DNS. They registered a domain name google.com.net. Because the browser couldn't find google.com it tried as google.com.net. It has nothing to do with them hijacking any DNS.

I do think it is unethical to register a domain such as google.com.net if you are not Google, but that is a different thing.

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Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack
(Score:5, Informative)
by ryanjensen (741218) on Sunday May 08, @09:51AM (#12467577)
(»www.ryanjensen.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday January 18, @03:35AM)
Thing is, they didn't register "google.com.net" - they registered "com.net". The "google" part is called a wildcard, and any "*.com.net" would go to SoGoSearch. (See this report [bizreport.com] about yahoo.sex.com).

The real problem lies in web browsers that append ".net" to a domain name when the .com version cannot be accessed.
[ Parent ]
o Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack by oreaq (Score:1)Sunday May 08, @10:29AM
+ Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack by WGR (Score:2)Monday May 09, @12:00AM
+ 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
o Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack by John Hasler (Score:2)Sunday May 08, @11:16AM
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Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack
(Score:5, Interesting)
by Dun Malg (230075) on Sunday May 08, @11:31AM (#12468223)
(»https://addons.mozil...&application=firefox)
com.net, net.com, etc should be reserved.

A better idea is to not have such brain-dead DWIM "features" in the browser. What kind of stupidity is it to blindly append a TLD to a URL that already ends in a valid TLD?
[ Parent ]
# The set of valid TLDs changes by tepples (Score:2)Sunday May 08, @12:49PM
* Re:The set of valid TLDs changes by Dun Malg (Score:2)Sunday May 08, @02:03PM
o Re:The set of valid TLDs changes by grolschie (Score:2)Sunday May 08, @05:03PM
o Re:The set of valid TLDs changes by Dun Malg (Score:2)Monday May 09, @03:15PM
* Re:The set of valid TLDs changes by m50d (Score:2)Sunday May 08, @02:30PM
# Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack by Laebshade (Score:2)Sunday May 08, @05:19PM
* Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack by jacksonj04 (Score:2)Sunday May 22, @08:52AM
o Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack by Laebshade (Score:2)Sunday May 22, @09:57PM
o Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack by jacksonj04 (Score:2)Monday May 23, @03:07AM
# Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack by initialE (Score:1)Sunday May 08, @10:47PM
o 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
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Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack
(Score:5, Insightful)
by Gollum (35049) on Sunday May 08, @10:03AM (#12467623)
In fact, I think they registered com.net, and simply created a wildcard DNS result for anything under that, which points to their search page.

As the parent says, it is common behaviour for browsers to try appending common TLD's to the end of an URL that is not found verbatim. When Google went away, the browser appended .net to google.com, and ended up at *.com.net.

A bug that people seem to be ignoring is that whatever browser is shown in the screenshot did not show the correct URL after the .net was appended, but left the original URL in the location bar.
[ Parent ]
o Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack by Kristoffer Lunden (Score:3)Sunday May 08, @10:08AM
o Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack by jmaslak (Score:2)Sunday May 08, @10:37AM
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Re:SoGoSearch didn't hijack
(Score:5, Informative)
by autocracy (192714) on Sunday May 08, @11:44AM (#12468304)
(»storyinmemo.com/)
It's definitely a browser problem. The resolver doesn't do that... the browser makes the other requests after being told NXDOMAIN by the resolver. So, while the issue comes from getting the wrong DNS response, it's because the browser asked the wrong questions thereafter. This also doesn't have to do with search directives. I'm sure there's something you're saying that I'm calling differently than you mean, but it's still an issue of the browser in this case.