StopBadware - A Good Idea Gone Bad for Google users

If you have never heard of StopBadware, heads up. This consortium of well-intending organizations including Consumer Reports, Harvard University and Google, was set up to warn people about websites which contain "badware," that is, software that might harm the computer of anyone visiting the site. That is certainly a good intention.

But here's how it damaged me and many other website owners. While I was out of town last week, a hacker somehow managed to penetrate my website and replace my home (index) page with a spam page that redirects traffic to a spam site. When I got back into town and casually checked my listings on Google, which are usually high for certain keywords, I was shocked to see every Google link to my website listed with this message: "Warning - this website may harm your computer."

In a panic, I tried to find out what the problem was, and learned that my site had been blacklisted by StopBadware.org. The only way to make it right was to replace the bad pages and make an online appeal. In other words, blacklisting is fast and automated, getting off the blacklist is slow and manual. I have read that it can take up to two weeks to get your site cleared after it is blacklisted.

Only after the damage was done, did I get an email message from Google letting me know that they had listed my site as a badware site. A clear case of shoot first, ask questions later, or guilty until proven innocent.

Every day this happens to thousands of innocent website owners. Their site gets hacked and badware gets installed in place of their good pages. Google and StopBadware slam the site and post the horrible "Warning - This site may harm your computer" message. The hapless website owner has to read through extensive fine print to find out what he or she can do to get right again. It is a terrible thing.

Google's famous motto, "Don't be evil," has clearly been violated with this new practice. Labeling long-standing, clean, innocent websites as "badware" when they get hacked is adding insult to injury and pouring salt on the wounds. It is evil. Google should change its practice and warn website owners of their site appearing to be "bad", and give them at least 24 hours to correct the problem, before essentially shutting them down.

This could happen to you. It's like shooting a bullet into a crowd. Bad things happen to good people. And Google is going along with this way-too-simplistic approach to "badware," harming many innocent website owners in the process. Please join us in urging Google to provide a warning first before it mislabels an innocent website, making it very difficult and upsetting to try to correct the wrong that has been done.