Clue-by-five Verisign.

[reddragdiva]

An update to this, from Slashdot:

Okay I have done the following sending a mail and I have gotten the following response:

Dear x,

Thank you for contacting VeriSign Customer Service.

There is no way for us to remove your subnet ranges from accessing the SiteFinder service. If you do not wish to be re-directed to the SiteFinder service when typing in an NXDOMAIN, you should look for ways internally to block the service.

If you require further assistance please contact us by replying to this email.

Best Regards,

Bonnie Bryant
Customer Service
VeriSign, Inc.
www.verisign.com
sitefinder@verisign-grs.com

Needless to say, you should go through the procedure to one of these, then call back the British help desk and go through the runaround again; and when they get to that bit, tell them about the email you got and see what happens next. See how far you can go; ask to speak to their Data Protection Officer, for example. Let's see if they can really talk their way clear of this one.

Comments

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

The mails are getting shorter. I got a very similar one:

Thank you for contacting VeriSign Customer Service.

Unfortunately, there is no "opt-out" for the SiteFinder service. There
is nothing that we can do on this end to be able to block your IP from
accessing the service. If you wish to not be re-directed to the
SiteFinder page when typing in an NXDOMAIN, you will need to look for
internal means of blocking the service.

If you require further assistance please contact us by replying to this
email.

My response of "Then how do I NOT become party to and bound by your Terms of Service?" has met with no followup answer.

[reddragdiva]

Obviously, you need to call them again and discuss the issue with them. It's toll-free, so don't spend too much time on their bill.

[dan-lane.livejournal.com]

I actually exchanged a few e-mails with one of Verisign-GRS's vice presidents yesterday... it didn't achieve much, but he was very disillusioned that what Verisign were doing was in the end-user's interest (based on market research apparently) and that they were totally standards compliant, he failed to reply to my last e-mail which I pointed out that the sort of end-user that would require a service such as sitefinder already had the option of using MSIE (which pops up a search engine when it recieves an NXDOMAIN response) I went on to ask exactly how I'm supposed to use the internet if I do not choose to agree to the terms of sitefinder when I use several dynamic IP based providers.

Update:
Heh, he actually replied to my mail while I was posting this, he avoided the opt-out section but he did state that sitefinder was considerably faster than MSIE's error page.

I avoided degenerating into a flame by stating that sitefinder was often down or slow to respond, I could see I was getting nowhere and he stated he probably couldn't continue this thread much longer as his days were getting longer (its about 6pm there)... I thanked him for his time, said I understood that some end-users needed handholding but I really did object to Verisign trying to hold my hand for me, I also explained that I had already blocked sitefinder from the networks I admin and that I hoped they would listen to the feedback and shutdown the sitefinder service as I would love to see NXDOMAIN replies return without having to resort to crude BIND patches.

[baralier.livejournal.com]

It gets better...

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/30/1064819912915.html

I need Bonnie Bryant to read this! A girl's inspiration at stake!

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Bonnie or whoever works for her,
I really need to tell Bonnie Bryant something! On her last Pine Hollow book, Full Gallop, it ended in a emotional way! My and my school Solon Middle, think that you should write a book after that! If you don't it will leave us in suspense!My little sister who's 12, thinks that if you quit writing one of the Best Series then she should not try to write anything about horses at all! And she loves horses! Her room is coverd with posters of them! She even worked 3 different jobs this fall to save up money for her own!She really looks up to you! SHe reads about every book of yours about 2 times week! Please try to write a book that is after Full gallop, number 17 in your PIne Hollow series! Thank you,
*Anonymous*