Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2008/03/25/kraoo_nds_typo_hjakin/
Dear Hull, all your typos are belong to Karoo
Something fishy about DNS hijacking
Posted in Networks, 25th March 2008 11:33 GMT
Hull's broadband monopoly, Karoo, has joined the ranks of Verisign, Tiscali and Orange in redirecting net users' mistyped URLs to pages displaying advertising.
Karoo, part of the K-Com group, is doing the hijacking in partnership with Ask.com.
Instead of seeing a plain error, customers are seeing their spelling mistakes pumped into the Ask search engine. In exchange, K-Com gets a cut of advertising revenues from the results.
The firm's technical support workers are telling customers that the "service" is only a trial. If they query the redirects, unhappy business and consumer users are told they can opt-out and given alternative DNS server details.
The trial began on 17 March. It intercepts domain queries that are non-existent in Karoo's own cache.
Typo-hijacking like this has a unpopular history, beginning with Verisign's first attempt to gouge revenues from its control of the .net and .com top-level domains in 2004. ISPA, the ISP trade association described Verisign's move as a "scandal" and accused the firm of "presumption that they own the Internet". K-Com is a member of ISPA.
A spokeswoman for the firm said: "We know that some people don't like it and they can opt out of the trial. Others find it useful."
We asked why Karoo had not made the trial opt-in if the service is so useful. "Well, we could do it either way," the spokeswoman said. "We'll be listening to customer feedback."
K-Com, formerly known as Kingston Communications, provides all fixed line telecoms services in the Hull area. It says that other providers are not interested in entering the market.
There's a thread about DNS hijacking for Karoo subscribers this forum site. A statement from the firm said the opt-out is available on the help section of its website. ®