Wildcard DNS record
A wildcard DNS record is a record in a DNS zone file that will resolve all requests that are not matched by any other record.
On September 15, 2003, VeriSign Inc introduced a wildcard DNS entry for all non-existent .com and .net domain names which redirected users to a VeriSign "web portal" with information about VeriSign products and purchase links to "partner" sites. This has the advantage of VeriSign receiving greater revenue from users wishing to register these domain names, however this action has not been lauded within the community. For more coverage of the commercial, ethical, and technical issues relating to this, see the VeriSign article.
The .museum top-level domain operated by MuseDoma has always used a wildcard DNS record to resolve unregistered domains. Attempting to access such a domain leads to a web page informing the user that the domain is not in use, and providing links for further information about .museum. Other top-level domains using a wildcard DNS record (as of December 2003) are .cc, .cx, .mp, .nu, .ph, .pw, .tk, .tv and .ws.
The Internet Software Consortium has announced that it has produced a version of the BIND DNS software that can be configured by Internet service providers to filter out wildcard DNS from certain domains; this software is currently being released for testing.
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