The New Scientist reports that several ISPs are allegedly hijacking searches conducted on search engines such as Yahoo and Bing and redirecting those users to other sites.

Let me quote the article to describe what happens:

This behavior may be considered illegal. A New York law firm filed suit against one of the ISPs and Paxfire, the company reportedly involved in the hijacking.

It doesn’t involved all queries, only specific ones that are mostly brand related. It also seems to only be happening on these ISPs; Cavalier, Cincinnati Bell, Cogent, Frontier, Hughes, IBBS, Insight Broadband, Megapath, Paetec, RCN, Wide Open West, and XO Communication.

This seems pretty crazy and I am surprised anyone would do this.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forums.