Type The Wrong URL? Comcast Redirects You To An Advertising Page
According to PCWorld, Comcast is testing a program called "Domain Helper" that will redirect you to an advertising page if you type the wrong URL.
Comcast says:
Today, we're beginning to roll out something new to help high-speed Internet customers get where they want to go online even faster and easier than before. It's called the Domain Helper service and we're introducing it as a market trial in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington.
...
With the Domain Helper service we are testing now, we will instead help direct your Web browser to an easy-to-use page with suggestions and links to get you back on track. We also provide a seamless search experience on this page, which is powered by Yahoo!, so you can find relevant search information, or simply perform another search.
The program is opt-out — which means you'll automatically be enrolled. This new "feature" isn't exactly going over too well in the comments.
For example:
"... just started the ridiculous opt-out process.
This is not a "best practice"; It is one of the WORST practices that an ISP can become involved in. You are breaking fundamental rules that govern the architecture of the internet. Further, your attempt to spin this into a positive feature is an outright lie."
and
"It is not surprising that Comcast cannot be trusted to conform to a standard, time tested protocol. Instead they have willfully chosen to damage the user experience in an effort to squeeze a few extra dollars from a service we are already paying for. To expect Comcast to be reasonable and customer focused on this issue is expecting too much. I think the only option is to complain to the FCC. It is what I am doing and I encourage others to do so as well."
and
This is unwanted, unneeded, and unwelcome. You're doing this as a market trial to get user feedback, yes? Well here's your feedback from Utah: Stay the hell away from my browsing!
You can check out all the backlash here.
Comcast Redirects Bad URLs to Pages With Advertising [PCWorld] (Thanks, David!)
Domain Helper service: Here to help you [Comcast Voices]
(Photo:mojojornjorn)
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Comments:
I'm not at all surprised that Comcast is using Yahoo for it's Ad Search...
They might as well send their customers a large box with each monthly statement with a COD request.
I'm not a Comcast customer, but really, this isn't all that bad.
You only see it when you type in a website that doesn't exist (I can't even remember the last time this happened to me.) Instead of getting a weird browser error, you get a page which (along with advertising) tells you what the problem is and gives you a suggestion. Is this annoying to some users? Yes, and Comcast should make the opt-out process easier than having to type in the MAC address of the modem.
There are plenty of other things to complain about Comcast than to waste time with something as small as this.
This is yet another reason to use OpenDNS.
VeriSign got sued and was forced to stop doing this in 2003. They're a little higher up in the internet infrastructure than Comcast, but still-- there's precedent for this being legally halted.
This is the opposite of a helpful service.
Verizon has been doing this for a while. I believe the process of "opting-out" involves you changing the DNS addresses in your router. Tutorial Link: [log.psi.cc]
I suppose Verizon didn't/hasn't gotten much attention for it because they're not notorious for habitually taking a shit on customers like Comcast.
I'm in New Hampshire and I just had to opt out of this ridiculous "feature", so either there was an error, or they're rolling it out in more markets than they say they are.
Hmm...cue the net neutrality debate in 5...4...
Normally I hate when I'm automaticly "Opted in" to things, but if the screen print above is right - and the "Disable this error service" link is right there and easy to see...
AT LEAST they did that part right making it easy to opt out...... even though they should never opted me in in the first place.
One huge problem is this: if you use your Comcast internet connection for work, you probably use a VPN (virtual private network), and this change will BREAK these in many ways.
Example: your corporate e-mail tool may be set up to try first to fetch your mail from a domain that's only reachable from inside your company's firewall. If that fails (because you're at home), it goes on to try to hook you up the VPN, or maybe get your e-mail from another address. With this change, that first request won't fail: instead of getting a "there ain't no such domain" message, as expected, your software will get a "would you like to buy some nice cheese?" message from Comcast, and will try forever to fetch your mail from the cheese-page.
Comcast's assertion that they've warned people where they're testing this is not correct, at least for me.
There is, in theory, an opt-out process. I've tried it, and it hasn't worked so far (although it's only been 24 hours so far).
This change will make life significantly more difficult for lots of people. Comcast should be ashamed.
Look up the nearest large university, and then google " DNS Server IP Address." They generally make these public. There going to be the fastest, and the least adulterated.
There you go. Problem solved. No opt out necessary.
@rpm773: Same here (Western Maryland). Usually if I don't know a website's correct URL I just use the Google Search (take that bing!) right next to the address bar in Firefox.
This would only be if your using THEIR DNS servers. There are open source and free DNS servers that do similar things so if your looking to not use Comcast you can use another solution like OpenDNS.com's DNS servers.
4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
Problem solved.
And to those suggesting OpenDNS - I always get the pesky Guide page, so that's pretty much the same as Comcast's evil doings.
@coan_net: If it were opt in, nobody would opt in and this comcast would get no revenue from the ads and promotions on the page.
I don't agree with it, but from a business standpoint, I see the logic.
I have Verizon FiOS and it does something similar. Before that I had Time Warner Roadrunner and it did the same thing.
Bell also started this in the past few days in my area, it is also opt-out, you have to store a cookie. If you clear your cookies, it comes back.
@ducttape38: That's what I was thinking. I'm always typing in web pages slightly wrong - today I was looking for Tanger Outlet's page, and typed in www.tanger.com, which is wrong. I wouldn't have minded if I got a page that said, Looking for www.tangeroutlet.com? And then had some ads for clothes or whatever.
Mediacom has been doing this same thing to me for some time. I don't know if there is any to opt out of it or not.
WOW! Cable/Internet does this too, which is slightly annoying because I tend to miss the 'o' in '.com' a lot. They serve the same kind of parked-domain style ad page, but now I'm going to look to see if there is a preference to disable.
When Comcast used to be in Los Angeles they did this as well. One day I started to get redirected to an advertisement search page instead of Google when I typed words into my Firefox URL bar. It was the most aggravating thing and they hid the opt-out button.
Charter did this BS shortly before I dropped them for AT&T.
*fingers and toes AT&T doesn't do this*
I have Charter Communications, which redirects some — but not all — failed URL calls to a Yahoo search page, whose contents are based on the bad URL.
This might be useful if the URL one tried to use, had worked but no longer does (you can get Yahoo's cache of it). But something much better than that, is the "Resurrect This Page" addon for Firefox ... it lets you pick from a number of different caches, not just Yahoo's.
It's not useful at all, though, if you simply typed something wrong, because what the Yahoo page returns is based on your incorrect typing. It might offer a link if you made a common mistake that Yahoo knows about, but usually it doesn't.
RCN is doing the same thing - without the opt out link.
@coan_net: you still have to wait some time
i got the redirect on monday... opted out, the 'verification' email came today, and then said it'll take 2 more days
@ducttape38: Point is that it BREAKS current standards. The internet is more than websites. There are lots of servers out there that use DNS and this type of practice breaks it.
optimum online has been doing this for a year now.
Solution: Don't use Comcast's DNS servers.
Alternative
4.2.2.2
Not an ideal solution, but a solution nonetheless. This isn't the only reason I've found to bypass their bad DNS practices.
and this is just one of many reasons that I use my alma mater's DNS servers, with MIT's as a backup.
the other reason being that Comcast's DNS is slow as shit.
Qwest does the same thing but I opted out a long time ago.
@evestay: LOL. OpenDNS has it's own search page it goes to when you mistype a URL with advertised suggestions.
Hm. Now I get Comcast (or rather my family does) but I don't get that when I got to a DNE site - is it only if you use Comcast's browser?
Hughes.net has been doing this for months and months.
Cablevision does this garbage. I used to be able to just type domain names without the ".com" suffix, but now it goes to an ad page if you try that.
Suddenlink does this crap too, and their stupid opt-out page doesn't work, because I still get sent to their search page.
Charter Cable does this as well (at least in Madison, WI).
Worst company in '10. The goodness keeps flowing:
Throttling bandwidth, capping bandwidth, shaping data packets, blocking ports, charging outrageous prices, bad customer service, billing people after closing accounts, compressing HD TV so it's really sdef again and now ticking people off with advertising landing pages and making it impossible to opt out. Your creativity is AMAZING! COMCASTIC!
@G.O.B.: Come on!: Thanks for point me toward the tutorial. I'll try it when I get home tonight. That Verizon page has always annoyed the heck out of me!
@ducttape38: Some applications might depend on domain lookup failures to detect errors, problems similar to broken/old links, etc. This would hurt that functionality.
Although it should be noted that many other ISPs have already been doing the same thing for years.
OpenDNS circumvents this. These pages are just DNS redirects.
You should already be on OpenDNS anyways!!
@saya: I was about to say the same thing! It DOES bug me, because I was used to my browser automatically googling for me if I get it wrong.
@G.O.B.: Come on!: I got really irate when Verizon started this.
Quick tip for that tutorial for the tl;dr crowd: look at the status screen in your router/modem setup, write down the DNS server addresses. Then go into the setup part where it lets you enter them manually, and change the last two digits from .12 to .14. Done!
Protip: After something like a power outage, those settings will still be intact but I find sometimes that verizon tends to not let you connect after an outage with the .14 dns servers. What I usually do is turn them back to .12, make sure to load a website or two, and then change them back.
At least that's my experience with it. But it's so designed for people to NOT be able to opt out unless they're hugely technically competent. Imagine trying to explain all that to grandma!
![[imgur.com]](http://imgur.com/R2vaY.png){kind=link}
Yeah, I picked up on this yesterday (Southeastern PA). I haven't had a chance to be annoyed about it yet.