[62191] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: What *are* they smoking?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aaron Hopkins)
Tue Sep 16 16:26:01 2003
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 13:19:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: Aaron Hopkins <lists@die.net>
To: Rich Braun <richb@pioneer.ci.net>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <15652.66.31.42.38.1063739247.squirrel@envoy.ci.net>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On Tue, 16 Sep 2003, Rich Braun wrote:
> VeriSign stands to gain financially, take a look at this excerpt from an AP
> news blurb published yesterday:
> [...]
> Anyone find out any details of the contracts which VeriSign has apparently
> signed to profit from this little venture?
It looks like Overture is doing the paid listings:
Compare http://sitefinder.verisign.com/spc?kw=Travel
with http://www.overture.com/d/search/?Keywords=travel
You can also see this by looking at the links on the results page.
"www.expedia.com" is actually http://www3.overture.com/d/sr/?...
And Inktomi is the provider of non-paid listings:
Compare http://sitefinder.verisign.com/spc?sb=verisign+sucks
with http://www.hotbot.com/default.asp?query=verisign+sucks
Both Overture and Inktomi are now owned by Yahoo.
Anyone with an Overture account can see what the high bids on the keywords
Travel, Entertainment, Gambling, Shopping, Gifts, Computers, Autos,
Insurance, Small Business, and Investing are now. From a SEC filing a while
ago, I seem to recall that something near half of the money from each click
goes back to the "search engine" in question, in this case Verisign.
-- Aaron
