His service will also correct standard spelling mistakes. For example, if a user types google.cm instead of google.com, OpenDNS will redirect the query to the correct Web page. OpenDNS also makes it possible for users to use the Web address query box of a Web browser in the same way users now use the search engine query box found in all modern Web browsers. Typing a search request into the regular Web address box on a computer that uses the OpenDNS service will return search results and related advertisements from Yahoo.
OpenDNS makes money when a Web user clicks on the advertising links. It is nearly profitable, Mr. Ulevitch said.
Valleywag writes more about the story as it relates to domainers:
Ulevitch’s OpenDNS would make typo-squatters an endangered species. By redirecting mistyped Web addresses to the correct site, Ulevitch makes life easier for Web surfers — and impossible for domainers. But then how does OpenDNS make money? Through advertisements displayed when an OpenDNS user accidentally types a search-engine query into his browser’s address bar. Sounds like Ulevitch, just like his enemies, aims to profit from your mistakes. (
And Frank Schilling adds:
I am worried about what would happen if a company like Gator offered him a big pile of money and the culture shifted in a darker more unseemly way. As a rule, I am firmly against helper applications and downloads like this because of that opaqueness.
I worry about such services as they have too much control over what users see. Today it’s phishing sites, tomorrow it’s links within pages. Today it’s trademark typos, tomorrow it’s generic typos. These things mix all the time. Say you want to visit “Flickr.com”, so should they send you to “Flicker.com” Or if you go to “Flicker.com”, should they send you to “Flickr.com”? And how about “New.com”? After all, it’s a typo of “News.com”.
My personal take, stick with standard DNS.
We don’t exist unless people like what we do. The entire service AND the choices we offer people are only for those who want them. That’s the point. We know we’re providing a fantastic experience, but we also know it’s not for everyone. That’s why we give you the ability to control and manage your preferences for your networks.
All of that, and it’s faster and more reliable than most ISPs.
Happy to discuss…
-david
—-ANSWER—-
Hello David,
Of course you do, it’s called strategic partnerships and the great power to influencing network controllers (sysadmins) and network owners.
http://www.opendns.com/about/press_release.php?id=24
“Pennsylvania-based Sands Auto Group has a fast-moving staff of 80 employees who rely on the Internet to access information quickly and efficiently. If the Internet is temporarily inaccessible due to an intermittent DNS outage, sales efforts are slowed. OpenDNS provides the Sands Auto Group system administrator peace of mind about Internet availability and an array of user benefits like phishing protection, custom domain blocking and typo correction.”
Let’s see, 80 employees with no choice. How’s that for individual choice?
Sahar
Sahar,
That’s a terrible example. Corporations are persons in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of OpenDNS. You’d be better off making your point if we were partners with large ISPs but we don’t have any major ISPs using us.
Go complain about Nominum, Paxfire, Barefruit, etc — who actually hurt your bottom line rather than OpenDNS, which doesn’t impact you at all.
Just because we get press coverage doesn’t mean we are the right target. Even if we’re an easy one.
In fact, you write the headline “My ads are better then yours” and you know that’s not true. Our ads are probably about the same. Except we try to direct people automatically when we know where they want to go, and we try earnestly to give them the best search results possible when we can’t. And yes, there are sponsored ads on the side, just like Google or Yahoo.
So not only is your headline misleading (intentionally, since we don’t replace your ads anywhere and never will) but your understanding of OpenDNS has also clearly been misled.
-David
—-ANSWER—–
“You’d be better off making your point if we were partners with large ISPs but we don’t have any major ISPs using us. ” - I would guess no luck yet, but I’m positive you tried to get them on board many times over by now.
It’s actually a pretty good example in relation to what you said, that you give individual choice. “Corporations are persons in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of OpenDNS” - So you control a corporation so it’s ok to control what the person wants? isp’s by the way are corps too.
In my eyes what you do is no better then gator and such in the good old days. The difference is instead of getting the user to agree to your TOS you guys bypass it all together, making a deal with corps and sysadmins instead of needing user’s approval.
I will bet a weeks salary that a significant tranche of the people who sign up for the sevice do not read all the TOS.. They don’t fully understand the gravity of what they’re agreeing to. And it’s not about what a high-minded guy like David does with it.. It’s about the potential for significant illuse in the hands of the wrog party.. Splitting the root in the browser.
—-ANSWER—-
I don’t know David that well but from what he just said, that he treats corps as individuals, I have a better understanding of their operation, of how they view the term “individual choice”. Little to do with the individual, lots to do with control.
And yes, no doubt few read it and from those, a fraction understands what they read.
Trying to determine user intent is a slippery slope. Do this mean that OpenDNS isn’t available to the fine citizens of Cameroon?
You can’t hinder innovation just because it hurts your bottom-line.
I tend to agree with David.
What Verisign was doing with DNS redirection was truly unethical, as there was virtually nothing anyone could do to circumvent a tactic which was undertaken by the operator of the root DNS for .com and .net.
What OpenDNS appears to be doing is operating an opt-in service that is not forced on anyone globally.
The argument that it “circumvents choice” for individual corporate users is false. It doesn’t do any more to circumvent the choice of those employees than their own personal choice to work for a company which controls its own network management abridges their personal ability to choose what kind of DNS or software that company chooses to run. Those things are always under the control of the individual company. I don’t know too many non-IT employees that join a company with the stipulation that they get to choose what sort of network architecture the company operates, or their computer usage policies.
It is always a danger to “split the root” or bypass globally-accepted internet mechanisms which muck with the definition and/or identity of global content. New.net/NewDotNet did this and was criticized from various quarters - largely due to their stealth/sleazy tactics in getting this driver/app loaded on PC’s, but also because of the fundamental dangers of “splitting the root”.
But that is not the same as forcing it on people without their knowledge or consent, something which New.net did do in part (ie as “adware” attached to Kazaa installations) or as Verisign did with their short-lived domain-redirection scam. (Which ICANN ultimately had a showdown with them over, forcing them to back down)
The biggest problem with OpenDNS is that when you use their content filter and the service blocks a page, it displays ads that would be otherwised blocked by the content restrictions. Thereby, if you are trying to increase productivity in an office environment, users can still search for sites and click on relevant ads that link to similar content.
Complete waste.
No thanks David.