Ryan's Journal

(first seen on Slashdot) Verisign, Inc. is evil. They are responsible in part for registering domain names, the .com or .net things you type into your browser. Being a power player in the game, they will be mapping all unresolvable domain names to an advertisement for Verisign registration. This means if you try to get to awoeitpyaosawoetu.com, you'll get a webpage. No more will the DNS system - one of the fundamental elements of a human-usable web - function the way it was intended for US customers. This means anti-spam checks, typing errors, and who knows what else will break; 'fixing' some of it will set you back by whatever Verisign charges these days.

And I don't know what we can do. The people running Verisign are simply exploiting their position of power for money without due regard for the rest of the world's Internet, but they're a private corporation. Can the public bring a class-action suit against a corporation for ignorant behavior in lieu of any governmental anti-trust litigation?

If you ever do secure transactions online, you go through things that are supposedly trustworthy likely because Verisign has OK'd it. I don't think I ever did trust them, and I definitely don't now.

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