UPC (Austrian ISP) started using Sitefinder Service (Update)

September 3, 2008

The Austrian ISP UPC (Chello, Indo, Telesystem) has activated a system which sends your browser to UPC site if a domain could not be resolved. They say that this helps their less tech-savvy customers but I believe it helps them more. Because they can put some ads on this site. They are not the first to try this. 2003 Versign tried something similar (called Sitefinder) but it was stopped by ICCANN and user protests. But that was not a provider.

The system is an Opt-Out one and not Opt-In. You need to perform 5 clicks, fill out a form and time to wait for a support employee to get it deactivated. You should really Opt-Out as the system can lead to problems if an DNS server is responding too slow and the system tells you you’ve a wrong domain name. The other question is what happens with the data gathered by the search engine on this site, which tries to guess what you meant.

Update:

This site (german) contains all info how you can Opt-Out.

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