claudeo
join:2000-02-23
Redmond, WA
| Give them a inch...
Once the precedent is established for this, what is preventing them from going further? As another poster pointed out, maybe try to force-feed an ad before giving you the response, or even interpreting certain queries to return the address of a different site that pays the highest kickbacks. So, you might be looking for "something.com" and be given the IP of "something.racket".
This must be nipped in the bud! |
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Skippy25
join:2000-09-13
Hazelwood, MO
| What is stopping them from doing that now?
They don't do the above because the above would be stupid and would annoy user's and force them to find another provider.
However, this I personally thinks improves the customer experience and I have no problem with it and I believe those that do have issue with it would be a major minority (but possibly a majority on this site).
I have had this built into my browser (Avant) for the couple years I have been using it and enjoy it every time I mistype something and the link is right there for me to click. There have been times where I was trying to go to one place but mistyped it and found links to better places presented to me.
You call it an annoyance, I call it a feature. |
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fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
1 edit | Everyone has that available.. it's called a search engine and you also have the "did you mean X" feature.
You have nothing special.
Let's just say this... enjoy you increased spam and other inherit problems.
When and ISP decides to do this, they are no longer operating under the collective guidelines known as "the internet"... there are common rules that ISPs follow and this isn't one of them.
If they want to do this, Why not just call this Earthlink AOL 2.0 and call it an information service "with a gateway to the internet." because that's what they are acting like. |
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Skoobz
@co.uk
| Ohh and there was me thinking Internet Explorer's Auto Search was a great thing.... this has been happening for years, you just dont know it. Keep up, Wakeup, Stop moaning, see the benefits, you would have had some bloody annoying IE error page, now you get to click something - superb - can it help with my hotmail spam? Im happy with this idea, and from a few mins research, it seems lots of comps have been doing this for some years. Its great, where do I sign up? |
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fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
1 edit | It's not the 'exact same thing' as what you are getting at. There is a difference between a browser's default search engine and settings being told to search from the browser's address bar than it is a DNS server redirecting traffic based on a 404 or 'No Domain Found' result.
This will also interfere with your desire to use your own search engine's default "search from address bar" feature because the DNS records of Earthlink will always return a result. Seems to me that their defeating the RFC on the internet for how DNS is supposed to function, they are encroaching on the rights of the end user to use their own search engine AND it's taking business away from google, yahoo, msn and other search engines out there. |
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dentman42
join:2001-10-02
Columbus, OH
 ·AT&T Midwest
| reply to Skoobz
IE's auto search thing is a great thing - for malware authors. I've found it to be a major way for people to end up at sites with driveby downloads. Since we set up a group policy to change settings to "do not search from the address bar", our malware infestation rate has dropped dramatically.
Redirecting DNS lookups that would otherwise fail is nothing short of breaking DNS. It DOES alter the way network applications operate. Suppose when you entered a filename to open, the OS gave you another file instead of telling you the file you requested does not exist...
Are you full yet, troll? |
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