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Google Say Good-Bye to Webmasters: ‘You’re All Malware Mongers!’
Well, it was entirely expectable – Google’s switch to all-Ajax is creating a ruckus the likes of which we’ve seldom seen.
All Twitter is literally buzzing with “Google is broken!”, “Google screws up” tweets (also: see here) and there’s more to come.
For a first scoop, see TechCrunch:
Google Flags Whole Internet As Malware
Update:
Seems that the issue has now abated, with Google stating that it was “human error” that caused it – so much for their automation.
You’ll find Google’s statement here:
“This site may harm your computer” on every search result?!?!
2nd Update:
When Google cited “human error” as a cause for their pseudo malware alert glitch, they tried to put the blame squarely on the shoulders of StopBadWare.org, a non-profit organization focusing on documenting malware to furnish lists deployed by security setups and applications to assist them in their efforts to fend off its destructive effects. So the entire snafu seemed to be that group’s fault.
But no cigar, said StopBadWare’s Maxim Weinstein. In his update (time stamped 12:31) he explained:
Google has posted an update on their official blog that erroneously states that Google gets its list of URLs from us. This is not accurate. Google generates its own list of badware URLs, and no data that we generate is supposed to affect the warnings in Google’s search listings. We are attempting to work with Google to clarify their statement.
Source: Google glitch causes confusion
After some to and fro the issue seems to have been resolved now, with Google apologizing to its users and StopBadWare underlining that they will “continue to support Google’s effort to proactively warn users of badware sites” though obviously not in the way Google initially stated they were doing it.
Equally, we for our part were apparently mistaken in assuming that the glitch in question was caused by Google’s recent switch to Ajax on their US based search pages – a strange coincidence indeed, but currently we see no reason to doubt the veracity of their explanation.
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