How do sites get listed as malware sites? I have run across 2 sites in the last week listed by Google as malware when in fact they were simply politically incorrect.

I’ve known some people who have had their sites hacked and injected with malware links. That then throws up flags over at Google. So it may not seem like there is anything bad at the site, but you really don’t know until you go digging through the code.

How do sites get listed as malware sites? I have run across 2 sites in the last week listed by Google as malware when in fact they were simply politically incorrect. IMHO some sites are being included in a malicious attempt to censor what some people do not like. The latest example I have run across is: [conservativethoughts.us] which I discovered by searching Google for for minimum wage conservative. I teach a political science course and was looking for content from both the liberal and the conservative viewpoints.

Does anyone else think this is disturbing? Are Google employees tagging sites as malware? This is one of the most disturbing things I have seen on the web.

Given the example you just gave of a site that wasn’t malware but was listed by Google as such, I can see why Google doesn’t automatically remove them from their search listings. For Phishing sites though, I think they should be immediately removed from the search results.

@ blog poster:
Firefox has a built in phishing detector that cross references with Google or any other source you specify, so it might show up those other times. “Tell me if the site I’m visiting is a Suspected forgery [x] check using Google”

Does anyone else think this is disturbing? Are Google employees tagging sites as malware? This is one of the most disturbing things I have seen on the web.

Because some times there’s genuine reasons to show these sites. Some/most piracy website come up in Google as malware but people still visit them. Plus if they didn’t show these malware websites, it would make it harder for the genuine sites to find them and take action. Google makes it so awkward to actually visit the site that 90% of people won’t unless they really want to.

I think it’s probably better that google shows a warning, since it helps educate people about phishing.