With the Internet being the primary source of revenue for so many businesses these days, getting cut-off from Google’s search engine can shut you down overnight. So it’s no surprise that some websites are up in arms over being accused of hosting malware.
Digital Journal — Some website owners are now claiming Google is inaccurately marking their websites as hosts of malicious software, and they want something done about it. They say their websites are harmless and they’re desperate to the have warning label taken off their site.
The problem arises from a deal made in late 2006 when Google partnered with the the Stop Badware Coalition to warn users about websites that potentially hosted malware or malicious software. After clicking on a link from a search result in Google, a user would be prompted with a warning about the site being potentially dangerous.
The Stop Badware Coalition (a nonprofit run by Harvard, Oxford, Google, Lenovo and Sun) is designed to curb a common problem with search engines: Leading users to websites that host malicious software.
If Google thinks a site could be dangerous, a user will see a page that says “Warning – visiting this web site may harm your computer!” While Google does not totally prevent users from visiting the site (you can still type the URL in manually), the companies accused of hosting malicious sites say the label is completely incorrect and totally embarrassing.
“We have no bad software or installs or anything that would indicate a need to ban people from viewing our site,” Matt Blatchley said in a Google Groups thread. Blatchley works for the Greenbush Southeast Kansas Education Service Center.
To get flagged as a malicious site Stopbadware.org says Google makes a determination based on its own scans of the Internet. If the organization receives a complaint at appeals@stopbadware.org, a review process will be initiated and Google will take the site off the bad list if it proves to be free of malicious software.
But the appeals process isn’t fast enough, as companies flagged with the Malware stamp only receive an automated email from Stopbadware.org that promises a reply in 10 business days.
“We understand that this may be an incredibly frustrating situation for you,” Stopbadware.org told IDGNS. “However, we have found that Web site owners are often not aware that their sites contain or link to badware.”
Stopbadware.org says a site can be labelled with a warning if it has third-party ads to websites that host malware, or if its web server has been hacked. The organization urges website owners to work with their provider to check for security breaches.
“They [Google] are the king of the Internet,” wrote a user on behalf of Kukars Infotech, an IT services business in Rajasthan, India. “If they rank our Web site on top, then they can even humiliate us.”
