Internet standards body ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, also has called on VeriSign to suspend the service and participate in a review of SiteFinder.

Popular Enterprises, the parent company of Netster.com, last week filed a US$100 million dollar lawsuit against VeriSign, charging that SiteFinder enables VeriSign to monopolize unregistered domains and to profit unfairly by redirecting all Internet traffic to such addresses to pay-for-placement sites controlled by VeriSign. The suit seeks an injunction preventing VeriSign from operating SiteFinder, and "to cease its monopolistic practices."

Playing Monopoly

On Monday, Go Daddy Software lodged a similar complaint, seeking a temporary restraining order against the SiteFinder service and charging that VeriSign is misusing its position as the authorized .com and .net domain registry to gain an unfair competitive advantage by intercepting, and profiting from, Internet traffic resulting from the large number of invalid domain names that are typed into browsers on a daily basis.

"They are using their authority to manipulate domain names for their own gain," Popular Enterprises spokesperson Robert Hart told NewsFactor. He said SiteFinder already has damaged ISP spam filters and has disrupted other online activity.

According to Hart, SiteFinder unfairly interferes with other search systems, including Netster's own SmartBrowse toolbar, which identifies errors when users try to access an unregistered domain and provides other, potentially related Internet sites and search options.

For the People

Tom Galvin, a spokesperson for Verisign, told NewsFactor that SiteFinder has had some 64 million visitors, including an estimated 5 million unique visitors daily, since the service was launched a week ago.

"We launched this to improve Web navigation while complying with RFC standards," he said.

VeriSign has responded to feedback from the Internet community by establishing a technical review panel to analyze SiteFinder, Galvin said, and is prepared to resolve any technical issues that arise. In the meantime, VeriSign will maintain the service with any long-term decision dependent on the panel's findings.

Misusing Authority

A number of Internet search companies, including Microsoft and AOL, offer a similar search function to subscribers, but Hart said VeriSign's latest release effectively "hijacks" all Internet traffic and redirects them to VeriSign's own site.

Go Daddy alleges that when users who are redirected to VeriSign's advertising page click on links to get off the page, VeriSign gets paid by the advertisers who benefit -- to the tune of $150 million annually, as estimated by VeriSign. (continued...)

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