More comments from Decius:

] The giant recorder of Web addresses sure sparked a fire
] when it redirected site-not-found messages to its own
] search engine. It's a bum rap.

Businessweek doesn't get it. This guy oversimplifies the objections to the service, explains away his oversimiplification, and then claims that sitefinder should be allowed. This is what is known as a straw man arguement. Read the IAB's comments on the servie. Read verisign's technical response. Even Verisign hasn't managed to provide a coherent explanation of how services other then HTTP and SMTP are supposed to handle this change. If you think the internet is made up of SMTP, HTTP, Ping, and Traceroute then you don't understand the internet, and therefore you don't know what you're talking about.

BW Online | October 7, 2003 | Verisign Didn't Deserve This Spanking