"Carriers are rolling out this type of service," Gouyet says. "We think this is a much better way and a more responsible way to do it as long as it is closer to the subscribers."

It's unclear whether the Internet user community will see the differences in Nominum's approach to Web redirection.

"Nominum is much more of a software vendor rather than service organization like VeriSign," says Elisabeth Rainge, program director for telecom software research at IDC. "Nominum is taking a hands-off approach to the kinds of things that raised alerts in VeriSign's service."

Rainge wouldn't hazard a guess about whether Nominum's new Vantio NXR will prove to be controversial.

"Things have changed culturally," she says. "People are more used to being redirected by choice. A search engine isn't really a search engine; it's an advertising machine. I don't think [Nominum's Vantio NXR] is very far afield from what people are already accepting."

Based in Redwood City, Calif., Nominum is a leading provider of high-end DNS software to carriers and enterprise customers. The company's executives include Internet pioneer , inventor of DNS, as well as open source leaders such as David Conrad and Ted Lemon.