Google Mystery Domain Reroutes 3% of Net Surfers 140
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the 3%-of-a-lot-is-still-a-lot dept.
from the 3%-of-a-lot-is-still-a-lot dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A new Google domain — 1e100.net, a nod to the company's famously misspelled name — is now the net's 44th most visited site. Google says the domain is used to 'identify servers' on its internal network, hinting that reverse DNS plays a role. The domain was registered in September and launched in October, about the same time Google unveiled Spanner, a new addition to its backend infrastructure designed to shift loads automatically among its data centers."
1e400.net? (Score:3, Insightful)
"1e400.net, a nod to the company's famously misspelled name"
Could someone explain that one cause I really don't get it or see the nod.
Accuracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Presumably that should be 1e100.net? And presumably it isn't actually "rerouting" anything. Hmmm.
Why with all the mystery? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not just call it 1e400.google.com? Screwy domain names with numbers in them make me think of ads, spam, or malware. I'd be a lot more likely to allow javascript/cookies and not put the site in Adblock or the hosts file if it was clearly a Google domain.
The googol network? (Score:3, Insightful)
Tha would be the googol network. Why not: -o-o-o-.net? (That would be a goggle with an extra "o".)
Re:Why with all the mystery? (Score:1, Insightful)
Cross-site scripting.
Re:Blocked in my hosts file. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's deceptive, which of course makes it look underhanded, even if it may not be. When I saw it appearing in my firewall logs, I blocked it immediately.
They could have easily used spanner.google.com, or loadshift.google.com, or balancer.google.com, or something else that isn't so suspicious.
Re:Slashdot helps (Score:5, Insightful)
You would be surprised how little impact that has these days. Slashdot continues to be popular with its core demographic, but that Internet has grown by orders of magnitude since being Slashdotted meant something. Now, if this had been posted to a World of Warcraft forum... ;-)
Re:Blocked in my hosts file. (Score:3, Insightful)
And the domain name is actually the numerical equivalent of a googol, which makes it clever, not underhanded. Just because you didn't get it doesn't make it sneaky.
Re:Accuracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well you're right, there's no such thing as truly unbiased news.
But certainly there are extremely biased sources, and it's certainly the case that Fox is one of those sources.
The likes of the BBC are generally much more unbiased, because they exist without needing to answer to shareholders and in fact, have a legal duty in many cases to avoid bias. Whilst you do get cases of individual bias with the BBC, they are just that, and multiple reporters with multiple views will post on the same topics, meaning the likely hood of some inherent bias is much lower than in places like Fox, where people are employed specifically with the goal of a pre-defined agenda.
So yeah, it's hard to find an entirely objective source, but suggesting the likes of the BBC for example are on par with Fox and The Register in terms of bias and zealotry of their agenda is really quite ignorant. The BBC for example does not censor comments for starters based on anything other than a set of objective rules which are clearly laid out and adhered to. They have a proper process for ensuring that anyone who believes their moderation was unfair can appeal.
Re:Its not a "site" per se... (Score:3, Insightful)