Rogers Hijacking DNS Server Error Pages

I had heard that Canadian ISPs had begun to customer error pages with there own custom error page laced with their corporate advertising. This apparently pushes the net neutrality limits, in fact some claim it violates it.

I first noticed Rogers hijacking my browser when it first implemented it’s 60GB download cap per month. Once I reached 75% usage, a message would appear at the top of browser page indicating this with a check box to confirm I had read the message. Now I just noticed today that typing in www.asfdasd.com (or any other domain that does not exist) will yield you a custom Rogers/Yahoo Search page.

Rogers Hijack

One thing that I noticed on the bottom was a link to “Learn More About this Page” which provides an opt out option:

These search results were provided because the domain name you entered into the address bar is either improperly formatted, currently unavailable, nonexistent, or part of a key word search. Rogers Supported Search Results is a service designed to enhance your web surfing experience by eliminating many of the error pages you encounter as you surf.

No software was installed on your computer for this service to work.
Click here if you would no longer like to receive the Rogers Supported Search Results service.

I’ve never been happy with Rogers. In fact, my disdain has become worse and worse lately with many of their actions. I’ll at least give them credit for providing an opt out option which I have just done.

You have successfully changed the selected landing page returned from the Rogers Supported Search Results service. If you would like to revert back to the default results page, simply delete your “search.rogers.com” cookie or return to options.search.rogers.com

NOTE: If you delete your cookies, or use a program that deletes cookies, you will have to repeat this process every time your cookies are deleted.

Unfortunately, all it does it put a cookie on your system. Every time you delete your cookies you’ll have to repeat the process of manually opting out. Sad Rogers, just sad.

August 20, 2008 | Filed Under news, tech 

Comments

One Response to “Rogers Hijacking DNS Server Error Pages”

  1. Rogers Hijacking DNS Server Error Pages PART II : brantheory on August 24th, 2008 11:03 am

    [...] a followup to my previous post, I noted that Rogers has provided a opt out for their “custom Rogers/Yahoo” search [...]

Leave a Reply