One of the ways OpenDNS makes money is to launch ad-pages for misspelled URLs that re-direct to an adpage. Worldwide 18 million people use OpenDNS as their DNS-provider…At a recent technical issue experienced at their Amsterdam servers (2 days ago), the problem was further complicated by an additional monitoring software problem, according to David Ulevitch, Open DNS founder and CEO…
Remarkable fact is that all Google-traffic at OpenDNS is led through google.navigation.opendns.com Because all Google traffic goes via their OpenDNS server, OpenDNS can exactly monitor what users Google for.
There are many such services that do the very same thing take you to a custom page that displays other options and may or may not have ads on that page; I really don’t have a problem with that at all for the service that they provide.
For the most part, if you make a typo in entering a URL if OpenDNS can identify the correct site from your typo it will correct/redirect you to it.
Personally I don’t really care who knows what I search for, I have nothing to hide, privacy hasn’t been a huge concern to me. Not to mention that information gathered is effectively anonymous. When your IP address is dynamic that data isn’t too useful as targeted data for ads. Not to mention it has to get past adblock plus ;D
Also consider this info, especially for those outside USA: http://apcmag.com/why-using-google-dns-opendns-is-a-bad-idea.htm
Then there is the possibility your closest Akamai cache will instead be chosen as being inside the US,
and your DNS service is not faster then
…part of the problem is the design of Akamai – it is, to an extent, a ‘hack’ of the DNS system
(not in the illegal sense; but in the sense that they’re using the DNS system in a way
it was not quite designed for initially.)
Akamai still lack mitigation for users that use DNS servers outside their local geography…
Similar problems for Google DNS…
I don’t understand what the big deal is all about, you are still much safer
using OpenDNS than not using it even if your typos are redirected.
Who really cares.
There is such a thing as going overboard with this “Big brother is watching you” attitude IMHO.
I use Googles service and am sure they are also making some money because of it. ;D
That’s what I use, Mac. They’re much more reliable than my ISP’s, and they don’t send me to other pages if I enter a bad url. Solid name serving without any of the tricks is all I want.
We’ve never looked at what people do through the google proxy. It was done to fix shortcuts issues. It’ll probably be turned off by default for most users soon.
We’ve always made it really easy to disable the proxy in your account.