No that's not really happening, Google is not buying Verisign.
But given Google's ravenous appetite for data, it might find Verisign quite attractive.
Verisign has both root domain name servers and servers for the .com and .net top level domains (TLDs).
Verisign could data mine the queries coming into those servers and produce a very valuable real-time stream of what users on the net are doing. (Verisign could sell that data not only to marketing analysts but also to certain governmental agencies who shall remain nameless.)
(For more information about what one could get from a root or TLD server see What Could You Do With Your Own Root Server?)
Google just bought Postini - and one would have to be fairly naive to believe that Google does not intend to dredge through all of that email passing through Postini.
So, perhaps we should not be surprised if my headline someday becomes true.
Posted by karl at July 9, 2007 6:50 PM