According to lawsuit filed today by law firm Reese Richman LLP, there is evidence that several ISPs have been engaging in questionable and possibly illegal behavior (according to them) by hijacking search queries. Using a technology by Paxfire, supposedly DNS redirects from searches on Bing, Yahoo and Google would lead consumers directly to the page of certain brand and credit the ISP’s affiliate account with any possible commissions. [pullquote]Using a technology by Paxfire, supposedly DNS redirects from searches on Bing, Yahoo and Google would lead consumers directly to the page of certain brand and credit the ISP’s affiliate account with any possible commissions.[/pullquote]
According to research done by two researchers at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkely, California, all together some 10 (or more) ISPs were involved with using this technology to hijack customer’s searches and mainly send to Commission Junction accounts for Dell, Bloomingdales and Safeway. If these claims are true, this would also have overwritten valid cookies from other affiliates using this method.
The Paxfire technology was originally made to create search pages for ISPs users for DNS and non-domain errors, but nothing on their website talks about using it to hijack commissions. One thing that should be noted is that the researchers claim that the “believe” Paxfire was involved in doing this, but do not as of this moment have specific proof that Paxfire is behind this scheme or that the ISPs actually were benefiting from this. The lawsuit naming them will obviously help find out if they are involved.
UPDATE: According to Commission Junction they have banned PAXFIRE from their system effective IMMEDIATELY
List of ISPs that are reported to be involved:
Cavalier
Cincinnati Bell
Cogent
Frontier
Hughes
IBBS
Insight Broadband
Megapath
Paetec
RCN
Wide Open West
XO Communication
What are your thoughts on this?
