Re: [sitefinder-tech-discuss] For the record

[Kee Hinckley <nazgul@somewhere.com>]

At 9:36 PM -0400 10/16/03, Brian F. Angus wrote:
>   provided by Microsoft and AOL (high percentage browsers),
>   perhaps it is time to enlist the big boys.  They have been oddly
>   silent on this matter.
>
>   Perhaps thay are waiting to see if it will be solved without their
>   legal muscle.

There's a couple possibilities.

1. Verisign is trying to cut a deal with them to ensure that they 
send their users to SiteFinder.  I can't believe that they would have 
set up a service that steals 75+% of its customers from AOL and 
Microsoft without doing something to smooth the waters.

2. They'll just wait until a final decision is reached, and then fix 
their browsers so that it recognizes the wildcard and goes to their 
sites instead.

In fact, I would anticipate that *all* the browser makers are likely 
to do that now that Verisign's pointed out how lucrative it is.  If 
Verisign doesn't give them a cut for making their browser go to 
SiteFinder, then it's going to be very lonely at SiteFinder.

All of which means that within 12 months the wildcard will be 
worthless.  Either the browsers will deliberately go to SiteFinder, 
or they'll deliberately go somewhere else.  But of course we'll still 
have to work around all the problems it causes.
--
Kee Hinckley
http://www.messagefire.com/         Next Generation Spam Defense
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/  Writings on Technology and Society

I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.

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