Threatened by a lawsuit from ICANN, VeriSign finally pulled the plug on SiteFinder. At first glance, one might think VeriSign did this grudgingly (in fact, they go out of their way to sound DEEPLY disappointed). But I will almost guarantee that they put up either a half-hearted fight, or none at all, to reinstate SiteFinder. Obviously, they knew they did something incredibly, mind-bogglingly dumb. But, to admit such a staggering level of stupidity would be corporate suicide. Conveniently, ICANN just gave them the perfect “out”. By blaming ICANN for SiteFinder’s death, and never reinstating it, they can argue that SiteFinder was a potentially BRILLIANT addition to the Internet “experience”, cut down in its prime by a big mean litigious organization. Of course, all the while they’re really thinking “Thank GOD that’s over, let’s go back to sending out phony renewal notices, like in the good old days.”
