Verizon's not just hijacking web page typos here - by responding to DNS queries with VZ's web server IP address, it's also redirecting email and other Internet applications such as ssh and telnet, and redirecting SSL secure web page requests, which is a much more serious security violation than redirecting regular Port 80 web pages.

The Internet isn't just the web, and DNS supports all Internet Protocol applications, not just web browsers - but the only application VZ's providing an application for is the web, and it breaks other applications. Microsoft Internet Explorer also redirects unsuccessful queries, but it's doing it from the web browser, so it's not breaking other things, and it lets you pick other search engines if you don't like Microsoft's. When Verisign redirected DNS queries for all of .com and .net a couple of years ago, they also provided a limited-function email server that rejected connections. It broke some people's spam filters, and did the wrong thing if you mistyped somebody's email address, but it at least tried. Verizon's press releases don't say if they're even trying to support redirected email.