Web-redirection software debut reignites controversy

Is the Internet ready for Web redirection?

That’s the question that Nominum, a provider of DNS software for carriers, is asking with Tuesday’s announcement of software that enables this once-controversial capability.

Web redirection occurs when a user types a nonexistent Web address into a browser. Instead of receiving a “Page Not Found” error message, the user is redirected to a Web page, such as an advertisement-sponsored search page.

In 2003, VeriSign added a Web redirect service to the .com and .net domains that it operates, and the reaction from the Internet engineering and user communities was overwhelmingly negative.

Weeks later, VeriSign was forced to pull its SiteFinder redirection service, which offered users the opportunity to buy unassigned Web addresses that were typed into the browser. Criticism of SiteFinder focused on the fact that VeriSign had implemented it in the .com and .net zones.

Nominum is taking a different approach to Web redirection with its new Vantio NXR software. Nominum’s software allows its carrier customers to provide Web redirection services to their customers when they type in a nonexistent Web site. Nominum provides the underlying technology for Web redirection, but not the Web-redirection service.

Nominum asserts that redirection of Web errors is useful to carriers if it is done correctly, by allowing them to provide branded search pages to their customers.

Nominum estimates that 15% to 30% of all DNS traffic is for nonexistent domains.

These user errors are “a significant opportunity for the service provider,” says Albert Gouyet, vice president of marketing for Nominum. “The end user gets more help from a carrier-branded search page, and carriers can use the service to monetize this traffic.”

Nominum says it has four carrier customers for Vantio NXR – two in North America and two in Asia – that all have more than one million subscribers.

Gouyet says Web-redirection services should redirect only Web browser errors, not applications such as e-mail. He says that Web redirection services shouldn’t degrade DNS performance, because of all the applications that depend on DNS. He adds that users should be provided the opportunity to opt out of Web-redirection services.

He says Nominum’s Vantio NXR enables carriers to provide a better Web-redirection service by avoiding these problems.

“Nominum’s underlying technology, called SureSurf, lets carriers determine what gets redirected and what doesn’t,” Gouyet says. “It has very fine-grained controls.”

Gouyet says that Nominum’s Vantio NXR is “night and day different” from VeriSign’s SiteFinder. “VeriSign did this at the top-level domain, in a nondiscriminatory fashion, without an opt-out. Our solution is at the edge of the network, closer to the subscribers, and allows an opt-out. It does Web redirection more intelligently. It’s a completely different value proposition.”

Carriers are starting to reconsider the yearslong ban against Web redirection. For example, EarthLink enabled a DNS redirect service last year.