fantomNews™ — the ultimate know

(rt) Sure, there’s Google’s official acknowledgment that their recently launched Web Acccelerator constitutes a privacy hazard, logging you in at some forums under somebody else’s ID, displaying private pages, deleting cached content, etc.: see .

Furthermore, here’s Brad Hill’s statement on theunofficialgoogleweblog: → Google WebAccelerator Privacy Problem Confirmed.

And yes, they’ve pulled the program on the pretext of having filled their beta tester quota (an alltime first for Google which has been running Google Groups in beta for the better part of two years now …), as we informed you here:
.

But have they really disabled all downloads of this malware? Unfortunately not. If you go to http://webaccelerator.google.com/dc.html the program will still download automatically. Here’s our timestamped screenshot to prove it:

One would have thought that a company of Google’s resources and technical savvy would be able to seriously prevent further downloads by a) disabling the download page, and b) removing the program from their download section altogether. The more so as this specific download link is still being propagated across a multitude of blogs and fora. After all, they’ve had three full days to do it after realizing that it may have been the worst piece of PR they’ve set loose in the company’s entire history.

But that’s precisely what’s obviously not happening. Instead, they’re still keeping this prime instrument of ID theft and potential click fraud available for anyone smart enough to search for it – Google the Phisherman’s Friend.

Well, how about raising some liability issues now? After their IPO and the ensuing record profits, Google’s one big, fat target (and, judging by their current behavior, a sitting duck, too) so there’s quite a bit of money up for grabs. Sez our in house fantomSybil: It will happen. Soon. Bad karma, Google, very bad karma …

If you still don’t believe it, why not take a gander at this thread:
→ Google Blames Web Accelerator Problems on Publshers [sic].

[Update 2005-05-10 19:42 CEST] So they’ve finally gotten the message: the download page seems to be down now – after a measly three days!

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