"It's no different"

Actually, it is. Google's DNS has no ads. Yours, by default, does.

Also, FYI, Chrome and the Google toolbar have no ads. It sounds like you have your head in the sand, or are deliberately spreading FUD. I hope it's the former.

It just occurred to me that by using DNS without any filters Google is going to take people to domain squatters when someone mistypes a domain name. To get around this users are going to continue to type the domain (or company name) into Google and click on the first link and some of them will click on the advertising link. An "improved" form of DNS is a direct threat to Google's profit.

That "improved" form of DNS breaks the DNS. Read what the IAB wrote about it. Think about what it does to things like email. It's just a bad, bad idea.

DNS like IPv4 is just a protocol. Creating a new protocol that returns the same IP address as DNS along with a safety score and text description, and a list of alternative domain names with their IP's and safety scores is not a crime against humanity. And hacking the existing DNS protocol to do much the same thing can also be a reasonable thing to do.

You understand that NXDOMAIN redirectors are getting copies of cookies, right?

   wwwwwwwwwwwwwww.bankofamerica.com has address 208.69.36.132
   wwwwwwwwwwwwwww.matasano.com has address 208.69.36.132

I think that you mean access to cookies. I doubt that Comcast is stealing your Bank of America cookies, but it's troubling that they have access to them. [Not necessarily my cookies, as I'm not on Comcast, and I don't use ISP-provided DNS anyways]

That's OpenDNS, not Comcast.

IIRC, Comcast was getting into this too. I'm referring to the specific practice of NXDOMAIN redirecting. Not just OpenDNS's practices.

http://www.semicomplete.com/blog/geekery/comcast-dns-hijack-...

I think that he felt you were celebrating the practice of disabling NXDOMAIN and returning a valid IP for every request with the non-existent ones resolving to the DNS-provider's advertisement page. This very much does break DNS.

OK, to clarify I still think you should rely on the application to handle invalid domain names so you don't break email ect. The problem is when someone creates a Malware site called microsof.com and it immediately compromises the browser of anyone who mistypes the domain name. Granted, the browser could keep a copy of bad domain names and worn the user, but Norton DNS could also do that same job. After all if you are going to query a system to find the IP address it might as well tell you as much as it can when it's responding. It's a packet based network and there is close to zero overhead to doing so.

Now I would hate it if my ISP where to institute such a practice but an independent DNS that let's me avoid most malware, spoofing, and parked domain names. Count me in as long as I can opt out at any time.

So, instead of fixing the root problem (dealing with the companies behind domain squating) we should keep adding redirects on the dns?

...from someone that already had his 2.0 cool domain redirected by a dozen isp because it was too close to another domain.

As far as I know, Google doesn't have ads in toolbar or in Chrome (beyond those which would be displayed by the internet ordinarily). I have to say that these comments of yours are diminishing the standing of OpenDNS in my mind. There's nothing wrong with using ads to pay the bills or make a profit from your service, but being dishonest about your competitor is unacceptable.

From your article, at least a few points seem very iffy to me:

1. "You get the experience they prescribe": I haven't used Google DNS, but am I wrong in thinking that that is the exact same experience as standard DNS? If so, what's the point of this sentence except to inspire unfounded fear in the people reading your blog post?

2. "But you have to remember they are also the largest advertising and redirection company on the Internet": Misdirection to make your readers fear Google without rational basis. Presumably you are doing this to limit attrition due to this announcement, but perhaps you are just deluded. This comment was completely inappropriate in the context of Google's announcement.

3. "It’s not clear that Internet users really want Google to keep control over so much more of their Internet experience": So long as the DNS Google provides continues behaving exactly the same as the DNS an ISP or your company provides, I don't think many rational people will have an issue with Google providing (not controlling) this portion of their experience.

A tiny, tiny sliver of Internet users use any third party DNS service, so it's funny to think that users are worse off with Google's server than they are with AT&T's or Verizon's.

How are the toolbar and chrome NOT in the user's hands? Your belief that Google monetizes all their services directly is naiive - they have repeatedly made very open attempts to improve the internet with no direct benefit to them.

Attempts to improve the internet as a whole may not directly benefit Google, but as an internet company, they will almost certainly indirectly benefit them. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Oh I agree - that's what I meant by "no direct benefit" to them. They explicitly have stated that they want to improve the internet because a better internet is good for them. I'm just saying it's inaccurate to assume they're starting a service for direct monetization and information collection.

And what is wrong with that? Google is doing something that will benefit everyone, not just them? They are going about this the correct way (ahm, no ad redirects). This is akin us blaming Red Hat for releasing more patches to the Linux kernel because it helps them sell their product: they will eventually benefit from this in some way but so do we. The only loser in this case is OpenDNS, who just got the rug pulled from under them.

By "a different layer", I think you mean "the right layer".

How do redirections/advertisements in Google Toolbar or Google Chrome relate to Google DNS? Weren't they already there before they announced Google DNS? How does their Google DNS service affect these?

You are trying to compare Google DNS with your OpenDNS service, but then when someone points out a difference that isn't beneficial to your point (that your service is better) you change the subject to something else. How exactly does this bolster your point?

If you're trying to say: "Google monetizes their DNS service with adverts/redirections in other business units. I can't do this because I only have one business unit (OpenDNS)." then just come out and say it rather than beating around the bush and redirecting the conversation.