Road Runner Now Hijacking “Not Found” (Mistyped) Websites
Posted on | February 22, 2008 | 13 Comments
Was trying to go to a website and saw that I was redirected to a Road Runner (RoadRunner) search page. Seems that they are now “hijacking” and trying to profit off of typos and sites and that just don’t exist. Normally you’d get a “Page Not Found” error, but now you get redirected to this damned search page.
Here’s a live example of the search page
Picture of the “hijacked” Road Runner redirect page:
Extremely annoying. Maybe it’s just the fact that I hate that these guys are trying to profit off of their paying customers? Eh. Whatever. Everyone has to try and make money, right? Notice that Verizon Internet Provider is also doing something similar. I’m thinking that a majority of ISPs are going to follow in mistyped domain search engine redirect practice. What’s basically done is that there is a DNS (Domain Name Server) redirect that gets the mistyped domains to the search engine results page.
Invasion of private in a weird and awkward way? I’d say yes. BUT…
At the bottom right hand corner what do you see? “Opt in or Out of this service”
When clicked you can disable
Web Address Error Redirect Service (This preference allows you to opt in or out of Road Runner’s non-existing domain landing service.)
Typo Correction Service (This preference allows you to opt in or out of the Typo Correction Service. This service will automatically fix many common typos in web addresses [for example: ww to www and .cmo to .com]. If you enter a non-existent web address, and this service is able to typo-correct your domain to a valid web address, you will be taken there automatically.)
Safe Search Filter (This preference allows you to restrict adult-oriented content from search results on the non-existing domain landing service.).
Yep. I disabled the SOB.
“Note: Preference Updates to Web Address Error Redirect Service may take 15 minutes to take effect.”
Take that, Road Runner!
Road Runner ISP Hijacking Mistyped typo domain URLs.
Road Runner is from Time Warner Cable Internet Service Provider.
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Tags: mistype hijacking > mistype redirect > road runner > road runner redirect > roadrunner
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13 Responses to “Road Runner Now Hijacking “Not Found” (Mistyped) Websites”
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"there's nothing like having a vision, imagining it, making it, then having it work, especially if your very being depends on it"
February 26th, 2008 @ 10:36 am
In my area, I have WindStream (formerly Alltel) doing the same thing.
February 26th, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
Wonder if you guys have the option to disable it. I went to my friends house who also has Road Runner and saw he got to one of these pages and actually clicked on the sponsored links and such…. I assume they are making pretty decent cash with this!
February 29th, 2008 @ 9:29 pm
Good to see I’m not the only one (http://seanreiser.com/node/212). This started happening to me today, too. I wonder if they are rolling it out gradually.
March 8th, 2008 @ 8:59 am
I am having the same Prob. It is a Christian site I was going to, It was there, I am linked to them on a blog.
Last week it was gone. The next day I found them put the link back, and now they are gone again.
Thing is I keep getting the RR page not found. I thought they might be blocking?
March 9th, 2008 @ 11:48 am
There’s no way they’d block an actual website…
That could possibly call for some legal action on a serious level.
April 7th, 2008 @ 5:36 am
I went into my ZoneAlarm Pro and did a block of rr.com in firewall blocked zones and under Description is added Road Runner Hijacker. And under privacy blocked everything I could click on with reference to blocking cookies, ad blocking, and Mobile code.
August 6th, 2008 @ 11:27 pm
First, they came for my 404 Not Found, and I didn’t speak up because I don’t typo urls.
Then they came for my 500 Internal Error, and I didn’t speak up because I don’t surf sites that write lame CGI code.
Then they came for my 200 OK, and I couldn’t say anything because craigslist, BoingBoing and Daily Kos didn’t pay Time Warner the new preferred carrier fees.
September 23rd, 2008 @ 9:16 am
certain websites are blocked
I was surfing shutersparks and came across this article
http://shuttersparks.blogspot.com/2008/04/time-warner-road-runner-blocking.html
the blocked websites are
http://www.prensalibre.com/
http://www.mayaparadise.com/
i tried the websites with a proxy server and they came right up.
March 2nd, 2009 @ 2:26 pm
I just started having this exact same problem! Only thing is that mine is not a typo! Road Runner is straight-up blocking websites from me that are perfectly fine, one of them is a family members website!
I got to work and access the websites just fine, then I come home (to my RR account) and I get forwarded to this Road Runner search page. I have no clue where this RR page came from, and why is my computer now forwarding me to this F’ing page?! It’s always forwarded me to a normal 404 error page, but not anymore. This started happening out of the blue about 6 days ago… It’s almost like they are monitoring our site visits through a proxy! ILLEGAL!!!
There are actually a couple perfectly legit websites road runner is blocking from me. I am a web designer and one of them is a CLIENT of mine!.. I can’t even access my own clients websites!!!
March 2nd, 2009 @ 2:43 pm
@Chadwick: It seems to me that when RR’s DNS server takes a powder it starts kicking out messages. Take a look at opendns (http://www.opendns.com/) as an alternative to RR’s.
October 19th, 2009 @ 10:28 pm
Eastern NC; Roadrunner randomly blocking website requests non-typo’d in order to profit off of their “search.”
I’ve kept a log of the redirects and it’s above 10% of my page loads result in an automatic redirect, even when browsing forums.
October 21st, 2009 @ 1:44 am
The whole redirecting thing for their profit is really annoying. Only thing we can do is ‘opt-out’.
December 20th, 2009 @ 1:33 pm
Hopefully a lot of people have been benefiting with this disabling information
.