McAfee SiteAdvisor Blog

It’s tough getting much work done this week as I and everyone else here in Boston scrambles to finish last minute holiday shopping and head off to spend time with our loved ones. Security companies, however, must always be vigilant. Today, I’m starting what I hope will become a SiteAdvisor tradition, a glimpse, each holiday, at the Web's holiday land mines.

For this mini-study, I spent some time on Yahoo Buzz, a terrific snapshot into the minds and surfing habits of our fellow man. What follows is a little expose' on some of the Grinches Who Are Trying to Steal Christmas.

Traffic and Weather on the 1’s

If you want to figure out what clothes to pack for Christmas week in Chicago, here are some links you should consider avoiding when you search for ‘weather conditions,’ a top holiday search term according to Yahoo.

Starware.com, advertises heavily for 'weather conditions' in order to get users to download their toolbar. That software gets a yellow flag from SiteAdvisor not for bundling adware, but for making more than 60 changes to a hard drive and swapping default search pages. Likewise, WeatherStudio.com and WeatherBug.com offer weather toolbars that take extensive liberties with users’ registries and hard drives. Just give us the weather, OK?

All that Glitters Is Not Gold

Jewelry is a top keyword this time of year as you might imagine. Pity a legit retailer like Zales. In the brave new world of Ad-Words, Googling ‘Zales’ yields zales.onlinerewardscenter.com as a top sponsored link. They (and their advertisers) send 26 emails per week to folks who sign up for their “services."

Another retailer, Dhanish.com, offers jewelry and more. In fact, it offers its own toolbar. Now, there are a lot of sketchy e-com sites out there, and this hardly qualifies as the worst. But why a jewelry site needs to offer a toolbar is beyond me. Especially one that makes nearly 200 changes to my registry. A gift that keeps on giving perhaps?

Two Sketchy Downloads, And a Partridge In a Pear Tree

Here’s a terrific demonstration of how our link analysis can be helpful to the general Web user. Search for ‘Christmas lyrics" and one of the hits you’re likely to get is metrolyrics.com. They don’t do anything bad in and of themselves. No spam. No spyware. But take a look at their linking patterns: red all over.

Browse Metro for any length of time and without even knowing it, you could end up on any of these red sites. Unwittingly wander onto mp3lyrics.org and instead of learning what the 11th day of Christmas will bring, you could end up with an inbox like this:

(By the way, that's how these publishing affiliates often work -- by directing their own users (aka traffic) to other sites that will pay them for the people sent their way. Often, obscuring the real names of the routes (the URLs) the user takes means he or she will make download or sign-up decisions without complete knowledge. SiteAdvisor's link analysis sheds light where the bad guys don't want it shed.)

Rated VX

Looking for a review or theater times for the 'Chronicles of Narnia'? Best Offers Networks, one of the top sponsored links for that search, suggests you can get free download of the film from their site. Aside from some piracy issues, the only thing a BestOffers download will get you is VX2, which, according to Pest Patrol, “monitors web pages requested and data entered into forms, sends this information to its home server, and opens pop-up advertisement windows. It also has the capability to update itself and install other software." (VX2, by the way, is brought to you by Direct Revenue. Is this their way of offering the web a Merry Christmas?)

Something tells me that C.S. Lewis didn’t mean the Narnia books to be an allegory for how broken our online advertising system has become.

Have Yourself a SiteAdvisor Xmas

The Web offers enormous value and opportunity. It makes shopping easier. It makes sharing information easier. It makes connecting with friends and family easier. It also makes the bad guys’ jobs easier.

One of the Yahoo Buzz top search terms this week is Xmas. As you can see, Xmas is hit or miss, safety wise. We here at SiteAdvisor wish you a merry and safe Christmas.

December 30, 2005 Update

Post Christmas update. I checked back in with Yahoo Buzz to see the climbers and decliners. Ipods must have been a hot item this year. Search term "Free itunes" was up +457% as of 12/27. Do me a favor though, and stay away from the top red link below. It re-directs you to everyfreegift.com. Get your free itunes from Apple, not here. Happy New Year.