DNS Hijacking
Feb 27th, 2008 by sharps
As reported on slashdot, TimeWarner / RoadRunner have been redirecting mistyped / non-existent URLs to their own (pretty lame) search page. Why do this ? Well it allows RR to turn all those dead-links and mistyped URLs into advertising revenue at the expense of a poor user-experience. Though, my guess is that any ad revenue they generate will dwarf in comparison to the number of extra support calls they will no doubt be taking from all the in-experienced users who don’t know WTF is going on.
Fortunately the ’service’ is optional and if you look hard enough you can find an ‘opt out’ link at the bottom right of the page.