ICANN Says No to .travel Typo Search
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has rejected a request by the operator of the .travel top-level domain name to redirect all mis-typed and non-existent Web addresses to a search service, much like VeriSign's controversial "Site Finder."
Tralliance, which was appointed by ICANN -- the non-profit group that governs the Internet DNS system -- to managed .travel registrations, wanted to direct users to a page that contained travel-related search results for the term they had typed in, along with offering to register the name if they were eligible. The .travel domains are restricted to companies in the travel industry.
An initial review panel recommended the proposal be rejected on the grounds that it was no different from VeriSign's efforts to profit from mis-spelled Web addresses with Site Finder. EarthLink has rolled out a similar service for its Internet customers, prompting a backlash from users.
In 2003, VeriSign began redirecting all nonexistent Web addresses to Site Finder, which displayed a page containing links to possible intended destinations and a search box. VeriSign said 900 million DNS queries each day are for nonexistent domains.
However, Site Finder was met which a harsh rebuke from the Internet community, with some ISPs pledging to block the service. Consumers were unhappy their browser was being redirected to a VeriSign page and networked administrators questioned the security of adding a wild card DNS entry to all domains.
ICANN demanded that VeriSign disable the service, which the company eventually did. But VeriSign later sued ICANN and, in response, won an extended contract to control both .com and .net through 2012. That agreement was certified today by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Tralliance, however, claimed that because there are only 23,000 registered .travel sites, an error page would not cause a major disruption like it would with .com and .net. But a second review panel disagreed, noting that e-mail and spam filters could be affected by the change, because invalid domains would show up as valid URLs.
Tralliance says it had not yet received an official decision notice from ICANN, which published the news on its Web site. Public comment on the proposal was not slated to end until December 7, leading to some confusion as to why the decision was made early.
The operator of the .museum top-level domain name, meanwhile, said Thursday it also plans to shut down a similar redirection service. The .museum service was cited in the proposal submitted by Tralliance.