Major Internet provider Comcast profits from user misfortune
By Mike Ferro
Comcast is the largest cable service provider in the US, providing hi-speed broadband Internet service to millions of homes. The cable company recently came under fire for implementing a new service that redirects bad URLs to a page with advertisements. This has many questioning Comcast’s motivation as it seems like the company is capitalizing on the user’s misfortune.
According to PC World, Comcast has been slowing rolling out a new feature that redirects bad URLs to a page with ads. This feature has been tested in several markets already and has now been rolled out to all areas. Comcast alleges that this new feature called “Domain Helper” is meant to aid users who may incorrectly spell URL names by mistake or are unsure of what they are looking for.
Apparently users are starting to call this new feature “DNS hijacking,” which is a technique many viruses and hackers utilize. The Domain Helper page displays a Yahoo search result list page with some sample recommended searches along with advertisements. It seems likely that Comcast may have some sort of revenue sharing agreement with Yahoo.
Angry users have stormed the official Comcast blog, with some indicating that redirecting bad URLs circumvents the fundamental nature of truly knowing if the URL is bad. If Comcast controls what you perceive to be a bad URL with redirects, could there be a situation where good URLs are redirected accidentally as well?
Users do have the option to opt out of Domain Helper, but it will entail users getting onto a special Comcast page to request it. If Comcast wanted to implement Domain Helper as a helpful feature rather than another way to generate revenue, then it should not be forced upon every single user. Comcast should make an effort to sell the feature by educating users of its usefulness and get them to sign up for it instead.
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on Monday, August 10th, 2009 at 12:53 am
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Read more entries by Mike Ferro.
Stumble It!
August 10th, 2009
There is another, and much better, way to stop Comcast from this DNS hijacking ploy……just configure your PC or WiFi router to use OpenDNS.
The configuration is as simple as pointing your DNS settings to the free, high speed, secure DNS servers being run by this company out of California. It automatically corrects simple URL mistypes (like mistyping cnn.cmo will still take you to cnn.com), and it provides built in, online configurable blocking of whole classes of undesirable websites (porn, phishing, etc)..
http://www.opendns.com
August 10th, 2009
I don’t see how they can do this legally.
I want my mistyping’s to take me to Google search so I can find the correct page.
August 10th, 2009
Yahoo Sucks!!