COMCAST is rolling out a DNS Hijacking scheme in many parts of the country (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington).
Basically, mistype your domain name, say, dailykoa.com, and instead of the typical bad URL screen, it directs you to their
Domain Helper
With the Domain Helper service we are testing now, we will instead help direct your Web browser to an easy-to-use page with suggestions and links to get you back on track. We also provide a seamless search experience on this page, which is powered by Yahoo!, so you can find relevant search information, or simply perform another search.
Enjoy the fireworks on their comments page, hell, add some as well, especially if you're a soon-to-be former Comcast subscriber.
Why is this wrong (in case you don't already know).
- COMCAST is breaking net-neutrality conventions by redirecting people to a site they do not choose to go to.
- They are "squatting", meanining by directing someone to "dailykot.com" they are claiming ownership of a site they do not own.
- They are breaking a lot of the internet- many DNS-dependent tasks depend on the identifying of a bad website.
- This is an opt-out, and the opt-out is appearantly ridiculous, causing you to type your modems MAC address. Remember the days of "no one from [provider] will ask you for your email address?"
Some comment highlights:
It is not surprising that Comcast cannot be trusted to conform to a standard, time tested protocol. Instead they have willfully chosen to damage the user experience in an effort to squeeze a few extra dollars from a service we are already paying for. To expect Comcast to be reasonable and customer focused on this issue is expecting too much. I think the only option is to complain to the FCC. It is what I am doing and I encourage others to do so as well.
This is unwanted, unneeded, and unwelcome. You're doing this as a market trial to get user feedback, yes? Well here's your feedback from Utah: Stay the hell away from my browsing!
You know what I want from an internet provider? What I really really want? What I will gladly pay for? A dumb pipe. One that does not question my intent as a user, one that does not poke and prod at my traffic, and one that NEVER assumes that it knows what I want and need better than I do. Your job is to transport bits from point A to point B and ANYTHING more is overstepping your bounds. I don't want want you to be a "content provider", a net nanny, or anything else. Be a pipe. Be the best friggin pipe you can be! I promise you that you will gain far more loyal, happy customers that way than anything else.
You don't have to be pushing malware in order for it to be considered typo-squatting. Squatting means to occupy a space that is not yours. That's what you're doing. The fact that you're not claiming to be anything other than what you are doesn't make it any less wrong. If I break into an empty house and take up residence there, the fact that I'm not also dealing crack doesn't make me any less of a squatter.
I can see this as a blatant source of alternative revenue. This is simply nothing more than a DNS hijacker. I don't feel that I can trust comcast not to hijack legitimate website address that may temporary have an issue with one of their pages, only to have Comcast pick up the request and route it over to one of it's "business partners". Yahoo doesn't like the fact that folks are mistyping Google? "Why not send them over to us"..
This is bad news.
Comcast, just charge us for the internet dial tone and stay out of our business.
And the poor stooge tool trained monkey they have responding to the comments (Scott)... is getting a little testy...
Brad, I got that you don't like Domain Helper and that's why we've made it easy to opt out (and an even easier way to opt out is in the works).
Plus, you don't have to use our DNS servers (of course you have to be a fairly savvy user to know that, but it is easy to find alternatives).
Kossacks... go to it. This is a salvo in the net neutrality war.
BONUS points for complaining to the FCC.