Internet Service Provider Redirects

[mat]

Has anyone else noticed ISPs redirecting misspelled domains such as ebay and amazon to the correct site WITH affiliate link?

For example if you type ebay.co.ujk you are redirected through to the correct site. A normal user would probably not notice this, yet it looks like the ISP will receive commission on any sales made.

Just something I noticed and found interesting.

 

[monaghan]

Hmm, that's a little naughty, would it break the ebay & amazon T&C's?

What ISP's have you seen this on?

 

[mat]

Have noticed this with BT.

I would have thought it would break ebay & amazon T&C's but they may have some kind of agreement with them.

 

[Skinner]

I believe opendns inc aff links in their "search" results when you do this, but not seen direct redirects.

 

[Adam H]

Just tried it with Sky and they are not doing it, would be interesting to see if anyone with BT can confirm though. Are you sure its not an additional browser search or malware on your machine ?

 

[Adam H]

That's what I thought as soon as I hit send, above. Quite possibly a BHO (BrowserHelperObject) of some sort. I've seen this before and even a DRS case launched because of one being installed on Complainants computer which confused them into thinking a domain name was resolving when it wasn't.

Yeah exactly, Ive had to clean up a number of machines before which have this exact kind of behaviour so that would be my first thought rather than an ISP redirecting, although if another BT user could confirm im happy to be corrected.

 

[diablo]

Have noticed this with BT.

I would have thought it would break ebay & amazon T&C's but they may have some kind of agreement with them.

I also see this with BT

Why have an agreement - just pay the £3 for the name

 

[mat]

As Dale mentions in the other thread...

http://www.barefruit.com

 

[Adam H]

As Dale mentions in the other thread...

http://www.barefruit.com

Interesting indeed . Thanks for that link.

 

[mat]

So if you don't like it, change it, as detailed above. It's very easy to do so, if you have control of your router and it isn't a locked down piece of crap.

It doesn’t bother me one bit as a user, I just find it really interesting that it goes on behind the scenes! Makes me wonder how much revenue it makes them.

 

[diablo]

If it ends up being related to the recursive caching name server offered as the default one by the ISP then consider using the two Google public ones, detailed at:

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/

Thanks for this - will be using this from now on.