McAfee SiteAdvisor Blog

'Miracle Diet' Web Sites That Thin the Wallet, Not the Waist

Bikini season- it just might be the diet industry's favorite time of year. What better way to encourage dieting and weight loss, than the fear of exposing a less-than-perfect body in a skimpy swimsuit on a crowded beach? As the summer heats up and the clothes come off, there is a heightened desire to get in shape, drop pounds, and score a beach-ready bod. Unfortunately, scammy Web sites selling diet aids profit from the weight loss hype. These sites lure consumers with dubious promises of miraculous weight loss solutions and misleading "free" trial offers.

Whether or not some of these products are somehow effective for weight loss, we're skeptical of grandiose claims, and we are concerned by the opportunity for consumers to be misled by deceptive billing practices. We went looking for sites selling diet aids with misleading advertising, and we came up with 75 sites to flag as yellow – one third of first page results for a Hoodia pill search, for example. We'll focus on specific examples from each of these misleading practices.

Lose 97 lbs in just 1 minute!

You want to believe it. Just pop a pill and watch as the pounds melt off your body. Well, such promises are too good to be true. But that doesn't stop some unscrupulous vendors from making fantastic claims that are unrealistic and unsubstantiated.

Bioglobelabs.com aggressively describes its BetaSlim diet pills as "scientifically proven" fat absorbers that work for everyone and can help dieters lose 10 pounds of fat in a week and upwards of 100 pounds over time without altering food intake or exercise regime. The site attempts to legitimize its claims by asserting that the product is supported by years of scientific research and used to be available only by prescription. Despite these proud statements, the site provides no list of ingredients or analysis of their "in-depth" testing. Meanwhile, their claims oppose many "common sense" and time-proven principles of weight loss.

BetaSlim's questionable claims

One of the latest diet pill ingredients on the market is hoodia, a South African plant which purportedly reduces hunger. But according to mayoclinic.com, "there is no conclusive evidence that hoodia is an effective appetite suppressant." Nonetheless, venders of hoodia products tout it as the ultimate diet solution. Nitetrim.com describes its hoodia product as a "revolutionary breakthrough" that was formerly only available to celebrities and will allow you to "sleep the weight away."

The FTC warns users about bogus weight loss claims and advises users to approach these sites with skepticism. It even set up a fake diet supplement site to illustrate misleading advertising practices. This teaser site looks remarkably similar to many of the real sites we visited.

The FTC's teaser site illustrates misleading weight loss claims.

We're all #1?

Many diet supplement sites proclaim that their products are the absolute best or strongest. Hoodia45.com claims their pills are "stronger than any other hoodia product." Curbyourcravings.com boasts that it has "the most powerful hoodia patch on the market!" Bioglobelabs.com describes its product as the "strongest weight-loss formula in the world." We have to wonder if there is a credible basis for these comparative statements. They can't all be "strongest" and "most powerful."

Desertburn.com is one of many sites claiming to offer the #1 hoodia supplement.

I know you are, but what am I?

Many sites also make claims that while their products are "real" or "pure," consumers should beware of other sites selling products with fake ingredients and fake certificates of authenticity. Hoodia-dietpills.com claims that their pills are "the only true 100% pure Hoodia Gordonii pills in America," but mh57.com states that their product is "America's only pure Hoodia Gordonii weight loss supplement." Who to believe? How about none of them?

Almost famous

HoodiThin.com promotes its diet pills by referencing the popular news show 60 Minutes.

HoodiThin.com attempts to capitalize on press coverage of the hoodia plant. This strategy could mislead users into thinking that HoodiThin.com's products have been specifically featured by news reports. Referencing CBS's 60 Minutes gives an aura of credibility. But while 60 Minutes may have done a story on hoodia in general, it never mentioned the HoodiThin brand specifically. Moreover, 60 Minutes' story actually pointed out potential legal and safety issues with hoodia supplements. So while hoodithin.com seeks to benefit from the reputation of the popular news show, they may not actually want their customers to read the report.

A diet for your bank account

Yahoodia.com free sample offer

Hoodia sites often offer free samples to get users to try their products, but these free trials often end up costing consumers more than just a nominal shipping and handling fee. For example, by signing-up for a free 21 day sample of pills from yahoodia.com, users are also subscribing to receive a 60 day supply of pills every 50 days – for which they will be charged $69.95 plus $6.95 shipping and handling, for each shipment. The first 60 day supply will be sent out two weeks after you order your free sample, and auto-shipments will continue indefinitely (until the subscription is canceled). The details of the trial offer are disclosed at the bottom of the order page and could easily be missed. The payment page includes a disclaimer that the buyer has read the site's "business terms." But, there is no link to a Terms and Conditions Agreement, so even sophisticated buyers may not realize that there were terms to read. It's likely that some users will sign-up for the free trial and not realize the resulting monetary obligations until they see their credit card statements. Customers may not end up losing weight, but there's a good chance they will lose money.

Hoodiamiraclediet.com's free trial could have implications for both your wallet and your inbox.

Hoodiamiraclediet.com similarly offers a free 7 day trial that leads to auto-charged shipments every two months. But in addition to putting pressure on your bank account, signing-up for this offer could also weigh on your inbox. According to the site's privacy policy, providing an e-mail address to the site is a "request that [the site] share your personal information with third parties to receive marketing communications." After we submitted a unique e-mail to hoodiamiraclediet.com, we received 140 spammy e-mails per week.

Tightening the belt on sketchy sites

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, roughly 66% of US adults are obese or overweight. In a country where weight concerns stem from both a growing obesity epidemic and the societal pressure to look good, there's no shortage of demand for diet aids. In fact, the diet industry is booming: consumers spend over $30 billion per year on diet and fitness products. So it's no surprise that scammers want to earn a piece of the profits.

The Web is often the first place people turn to look for diet and weight loss tips: according to Yahoo's keyword selector tool Yahoo had roughly 5.4 million searches in May for "diet," "weight loss," "hoodia" and related search terms. Given that Yahoo accounts for 23% of all searches, an estimated 23.5 million total searches for diet related terms are conducted each month. Finding unbiased reliable health information online, however, is not always so easy. Consumers run a high risk of being misinformed about weight loss issues and misled into wasting money on sites with questionable products and business practices. Therefore we've rated these sites yellow to urge users to be cautious when visiting these sites.

Where to find trustworthy weight loss and diet information:
FDA: How to Lose and Manage Weight
MedlinePlus: Weight Control
FTC: Finding a Weight Loss Program that Works for You
FTC: Diet and Fitness
Mayo Clinic: Weight-loss pills: What can diet aids do for you?

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Examining the readability of privacy policies for the most popular kids Web sites

As parents prepare for summer vacation, with their kids spending more free time on the Web, our thoughts turned to online privacy policies. Are kids well equipped to understand the policies of the sites they visit? We examine the top hundred most heavily-trafficked kids and teens English-language Web sites (as ranked by Alexa), analyzing their privacy policies for readability.

SiteAdvisor doesn’t review legal notices as part of its automated testing, but we are concerned these documents use language that’s too complex for children to understand (not to mention adults, in many cases). Anecdotally, we know that even young children often surf the Web alone. In fact, a Kaiser Foundation study found that 31% of minors aged 8-18 have a computer in the bedroom.

This is important for several reasons. Children don’t always ask their parents’ permission before registering for sites or installing programs. Indeed, we think it’s safe to assume that most kids don’t even read accompanying legal notices before "accepting" them. And for the few kids who do read them, we suspect they don't fully understand the contents.

License agreements and privacy policies often bury fine print users wouldn’t like and don’t intend to agree to. Some policies contain language purporting to allow a site to sell or rent a user’s e-mail address to third party advertisers. Others purport to let the site install unrelated adware along with the games or music the child seeks.

Reading At Grade Level

Readability.info is a Web site built by Dave Taylor, a computer scientist, technology consultant and entrepreneur. The site rates the readability of English language text uploaded to it using seven standard academic comprehension scales. The scales are different, but some common criteria include the number of syllables per word, the number of characters per word, and the average number of words per sentence.

We decided to focus on the Lix readability scale because its scores correspond to U.S. school grade reading levels. In other words, the scores reflect the grade level required to comprehend a text -- in our case, a Web site’s privacy policy. (Learn more about readability tests at this Wikipedia entry).

Has The Jury Reached A Verdict?

The sites with the most and least readable privacy policies are as follows. (The numbers refer to the Lix Score and the corresponding grade level:

Top 10 Most Readable

1. bbc.co.uk/cbbc – 38.6 - 6
2. yahooligans.yahoo.com – 39.4 - 6
3. geocities.yahoo.com – 40.1 - 6
4. pbskids.org – 40.8 - 6
5. onelook.com – 41.9 - 7
6. mugglenet.com – 44.2 - 8
7. tripod.lycos.co.uk – 44.6 - 8
8. starwars.com – 46.6 - 8
9. gamespot.com – 47.6 - 8
9. gamefaqs.com – 47.6 - 8
9. enchantedlearning.com – 47.6 – 8
10. fifaworldcup.yahoo.com – 47.9 - 8

Bottom 10 Least Readable

1. guildwars.com – 64.5 – 11+
2. nickjr.com – 60.9 – 11+
3. fifa.com – 60.4 – 11+
4. noggin.com – 60.1 – 11+
5. xbox.com – 59.4 – 11+
5. encarta.msn.com – 59.4 – 11+
5. microsoft.com/games – 59.4 – 11+
6. blizzard.com – 59.3 – 11+
6. battle.net – 59.3 – 11+
7. thinkquest.org – 58.7 – 11+
8. ubi.com – 57.7 – 11+
8. us.playstation.com – 57.7 – 11+
8. mtv.com/music – 57.7 – 11+
9. homestarrunner.com – 56.8 – 11
10. nick.com – 56.6 – 11

To put these results in context, consider the grade levels required to understand some well known texts:

A typical New York Times story – (Grade 5 -- 34.1)
A typical White House press release – (Below Grade 5 – 28.3)

View the scores of all privacy policies here. All policies were tested on June 11, 2006.

(A note on our methods: We began with Alexa’s top "Kids and Teens" sites which is based on the DMOZ open directory project. We took the top 100 English language sites, removed duplicate second-level domains as well as sites that seemed, to us, to be targeted at adults (e.g. honda.com, faa.gov). We were left with 50 sites, which we then tested and ranked.

The Simple

The ten sites with the lowest Lix scores all have legal notices that anyone who reads at a sixth grade level can understand.

Case in point: Yahooligans.com. This Yahoo-operated site for kids has a straightforward privacy policy that uses easy-to-understand prose. Notice Yahoo’s simple declarative sentences.

"...this Children's Privacy Policy provides further information and privacy protections for our users who are under the age of 13."

Its "Information Sharing and Disclosure" section succinctly states:

"Yahoo! will not contact children under 13 about special offers or for marketing purposes without parental consent."

Yahooligans provides an educational article for parents about how to interpret privacy policies. A noteworthy quote:

"Make sure your children know to ask for your permission before they give out ANY personal information about themselves to any web site or in response to any email message."

Pbskids.org also features a privacy policy written at a sixth-grade reading level. Like most privacy policies, it informs the reader that visiting pbskids.org will result in the creation of "cookies" in the Web browser. It commendably proceeds to define what a "cookie" is, for those who don’t already know.

"What's a cookie? A cookie is information a Web site puts on your computer's hard drive so that the site can remember your preferences or which pages you visited on that site."

The Complex

The ten sites with the highest Lix scores all have intricate legal notices that require a reading comprehension level at or above grade eleven. We focus on two sites owned by Viacom.

The privacy policy for the Web site of cable channel Nick Jr. is nearly 3500 words long and packs a few potentially troubling tidbits. For one:

"From time to time, we (independent third-party shop.nickjr.com) may transfer, disclose or share such information with third parties who may be engaged by us specifically to handle and manage certain functions (e.g., fulfilling contests and sweepstakes conducted on the Shop to which we are sponsors)."

Nickjr.com is devoted to the kindergarten set with games and activities built around TV shows like Blues Clues and Dora the Explorer. Not the kind of audience that’s up to comprehending "transfer, disclose or share...with third parties."

Fellow Nickelodeon channel Noggin proudly describes itself to be "like preschool on TV." However, you’ll need to read above an eleventh grade level to understand their Web site’s privacy policy. Try asking a child to wrap his head around this sentence:

"Noggin.com currently does not disclose to third parties personally identifiable information that users provide except, from time to time however, we may transfer, disclose or share such information with third parties who may be engaged by us specifically to handle and deliver certain online activities (e.g. conducting contests and sweepstakes)."

Under a section called "For Parents," Noggin does encourage parents to talk to their kids about personal information and the Web:

"We urge preschoolers to check with their parent or guardian before entering any information on any website and we urge parents and guardians to discuss with their preschoolers restrictions regarding the online release of personal information to anyone they don't know."

As for the kids who surf Noggin.com alone, we suspect that nothing will stop them as they search for a good Connie the Cow game or Pinky Dinky Doo sing along.

Good Advice?

Microsoft advises parents to read it "all."

"The key to helping prevent the installation of spyware is to download programs only from sources you trust and to read all security warnings, license or user agreements, and privacy statements associated with any software you download or install on your computer."

The National Cyber Security Alliance goes further with this recommendation:

"If you don't see a privacy policy – or if you can't understand it – consider doing business elsewhere."

Generally speaking, we agree that users should know what they’re getting into when they click "I agree." But we’re not the first to look at how hard it is to take this advice given the complexity of legal notices. Wayne Porter from Facetime examines the Tinkopal toolbar end user license agreement (EULA) using the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test. Spyware researcher (and SiteAdvisor advisor) Ben Edelman dissected an old Gator EULA.

In fact, Ben has often focused on kids Web safety. His dollidol.com investigation revealed an instance of a Zango adware installation process that (among other things) presented a "license agreement in an oddly-shaped window that discouraged careful review." We recently published "Are Smileys Safe?" which exposes the use of "free smiley" offers as a way to entice kids to install adware.

Keep It Simple

SiteAdvisor doesn’t rate a site unfavorably if its legal notices are too complex for its target audience. In fact, all of the sites in Alexa’s Top 100 English-Language Kids and Teens Web sites are rated green (safe-to-use) by SiteAdvisor.

Nonetheless, we do think these sites ought to revisit their privacy policies. Perhaps this article will inspire the Web’s most popular Kids and Teens sites to consider children’s reading abilities when writing their legal notices. We recognize that Internet law is complex and legalese is often necessary. SiteAdvisor’s own 2,409 word Terms Of Service has a Lix score above the 11th grade level, though our service is not targeted toward children. Our "Really Big Picture" Terms Of Service overview has a Lix score at the 9th grade level. We point to sites like Yahooligans and PBSKids that have managed to draft their notices to be more readily understandable to their intended users. We support that effort.

Not all parents and guardians can supervise their childrens’ every click. One way to help kids stay safe from spam, spyware and scams on the Web is to install our software and tell the kids "green means go" and "red means run." And that advice has a very good readability score.

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Last week the top executives of Freeze.com were announced winners of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2006 award in the Minnesota and Dakotas region. Freeze.com's co-founders were recognized as "outstanding leaders" in the E-Business industry, and they're now eligible to be considered for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2006 national program. Ernst & Young says it gives these awards to celebrate "visionaries who are creating and building world-class businesses." We were surprised to learn that freeze.com had been selected as a winner. We have concerns about their business practices. We wouldn't be inclined to give Freeze any awards.

Freeze.com is an online provider of free screensavers, desktop wallpapers, and other download content. Freeze.com presumably makes money by promoting offers from affiliate advertisers and from bundling third party software with the site’s downloads. McAfee SiteAdvisor rates freeze.com red, because when we entered a unique e-mail address on the site, we received an overwhelming 94 spammy e-mails per week.

Freeze.com's homepage

Entering our e-mail address on freeze.com resulted in 94 spammy e-mails per week.

When we downloaded Freeze's Living Marine Aquarium 2 screensaver, we were required to register our e-mail address in order to become a Freeze member. Once we had registered, we were prompted to fill out a list of questions styled as a survey. But the "survey" is really a gateway to Freeze's advertising offers. Each survey question is strategically written to increase the chance that users will answer "Yes"; for example: "Do you think you should be paid more?" and "Do you enjoy listening to music?" Each time we clicked "Yes", we received a solicitation from one of Freeze's advertisers. And, as Freeze's privacy policy explains, information shared on Freeze's Web site, including e-mail addresses, "may be shared with affiliates and trusted business partners." A few hundred emails later, we think most users will consider this a remarkably bad deal.

Freeze requires users to fill out an offer survey before downloading from the site.

In addition, once we got through the multiple offer screens, Freeze's download came bundled with the Yahoo! Toolbar, WhenU SaveNow, The Weather Channel Desktop, and New dot Net with Quick Browser search assistant. The installation process also prompted us to change our browser's start page to freeze.com.

Freeze's screensaver may have been free to the user in the monetary sense: it's true that we didn't pay Freeze any money to get the screensaver. But Freeze users end up paying Freeze a steep price by allowing their e-mail address to be shared, accepting the installation of extra software, and letting third parties track their behavior. Apparently "free" does not mean that there are no strings attached: In addition to the "free" screensaver, users end up with third party software, much of which is often considered to be adware and spyware, a new homepage, and an inbox full of spam. Meanwhile, screensavers cost little to distribute, while advertising yields real revenues – so we sense that Freeze makes a tidy profit from this transaction.

SiteAdvisor reviewers have supported the site's red rating by expressing their frustration about their experiences with freeze.com on the user comment section of Freeze's SiteAdvisor site report page. In the past five months, 13 SiteAdvisor reviewer comments flagged the site for spam and spyware, including:

"One of the worst offenders for spyware distribution"

"Inbox filled to the brim with unwanted emails. Completely annoying."

"Stay away at all costs!"

We are alarmed and disappointed to see Ernst & Young – a global auditing powerhouse –praise these business practices. There is certainly a lot of money to be made through online affiliate advertising, and Freeze has seized this opportunity. But the world need not endorse Freeze's approach, where Freeze's profits come at consumers' expense.

We are not accusing Ernst & Young of supporting the proliferation of spam and spyware. But we believe this award is a symptom of a larger problem: that despite such expository articles by The LA Times' Joe Menn and the Washington Post's Robert MacMillan, the business community remains largely unaware that spam and spyware are created and funded by seemingly legitimate companies.

Last year Ernst & Young selected an executive of Webroot (an anti-spyware software provider) as one of Ernst & Young's 2005 Entrepreneurs of the Year. To Ernst & Young, Webroot and Freeze may both be entrepreneurs. But we think it's important to distinguish between the success of Freeze, a company that provides products and services of questionable value to consumers, and the success of Webroot, a company that provides products that help consumers.

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FIFA's greatest players and teams ranked by the danger of their screensaver searches

Angola may have lost in Round 1 of the World Cup of Soccer, but it's the winner of the most dangerous team in the World Cup of Spyware. That's our finding after running each of the World Cup's 736 players through our database of Web safety ratings and averaging the team roster's results.

We know that spammers and spyware vendors follow consumer trends closely, from American Idol to summer blockbusters, but those are largely U.S. phenomena. We wanted to know what level of online risk was faced by fans of a global event like the World Cup. Sadly, we were not disappointed.

How does your team rank?

We began by searching Google for each of the 736 World Cup players. Along with the player's name, we added the phrase 'World Cup Screensaver'. Then, we crossed Google's search results with SiteAdvisor's own database of safety test results of more than 3.9 million of the Web's most popular sites. The results for dozens of players yielded 30% or more risky sites. We performed the same exercise for all teams and found 11 with dangerous site percentages in the double digits.

You might be surprised how some of the teams and players ranked in our study. Want to see the full results and find out how your home team scored? Get all the details in our World Cup of Spyware Survey.

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The 10 Most Dangerous Summer Movies to Search For

As consumers flock to the Web to learn more about this summer’s "event" movies, we decided to see if the scammers and spammers had followed. So, do any of this summer’s biggest names contain any hidden computer dangers? We searched Google for the titles of 37 summer ’06 blockbusters plus the word "screensaver" and calculated the percentage of risky site links returned on the first page of search results. We also performed similar screensaver searches for 48 of these films’ leading actors.

Sure enough, we found plenty to watch out for, including screensaver sites that lead to spyware, spam and other online nuisances. The right screensaver can let the fan savor his or her favorites all summer long. The wrong ones, well, let’s just say the movie may have come and gone, but the PC complications could last indefinitely. What follows are the 10 most dangerous summer blockbusters, and the 10 most dangerous blockbuster actors.

Danger lurks in Miami

Most Dangerous Summer Blockbuster: Miami Vice

It may be dangerous working as an undercover cop in Miami investigating murder and drug trafficking, but it’s also dangerous searching for a Miami Vice screensaver. 53% of first page Google search results are rated red or yellow by McAfee SiteAdvisor. First page search results include screensavers.com, which hosted risky downloads when we tested it, tv.org, which charged a customer service fee for free software, and desktopland.com, an aggregator of desktop downloads which linked to many red sites. Fans eagerly anticipating the July 28 movie release may want to exercise caution wallpapering their PCs with this 1980s revival.

Search results for "Miami Vice Screensaver" contain many risky sites.

Searching for screensavers of the film’s leading men Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell can also put adoring audiences at risk. Foxx and Farrell’s search results were 42% and 43% risky, respectively. Colin’s search included godesktop.com, where, in our tests, many downloads came bundled with Acoona Search Assistant and New dot Net. If you must get your fix of Foxx and Farrell, try their official fan sites here and here, both of which tested safe.

Careful what you click for

In the soon to be released movie Click, Adam Sandler receives a magical remote control that lets him manipulate life as if it were a recorded TV show. This remote would definitely come in handy when searching for a Click screensaver. Our search returned 50% risky sites, including galttech.com, where downloads might install 180Solutions, Zango, WhenU, Global Search Toolbar, or eZula. With such high odds of stumbling onto a risky Web site, the rewind button would certainly prove invaluable to users’ PCs.

TOP 10 MOST DANGEROUS SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS

What do a wrestler, a radio show and a secret agent have in common?

Seeing Jack Black sport a skin-tight wrestling costume in Nacho Libre may be a rather scary experience, but viewers have little to fear when searching for the film’s screensavers. Nacho Libre, along with A Prairie Home Companion and Mission: Impossible III, are among the safest summer blockbusters. Oddly enough, The Omen, which promises satanic horror, and DOA: Dead or Alive, which is full of violent fight scenes, are two other safe bets according to our May 2006 tests. And while Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston may threaten each other in The Break-Up, a search for the romantic comedy’s screensavers poses little threat to viewers’ PCs.

Most Dangerous Actor in A Summer Blockbuster: Uma Thurman

Starring in My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Uma Thurman takes the title for most dangerous actress in a summer blockbuster. 73% of her first page screensaver search results are rated red or yellow. In her up-coming movie, Uma plays a love-scorned superhero who uses her superpowers to make her ex-boyfriend’s life a living hell. Uma’s screensavers could have similar effects on fans’ PCs. When we searched for “Uma Thurman screensaver,” our search results included bad linker alwaysgirls.com, which directed us to an Uma Thurman screensaver from ezthemes.com. Take a look at the installation process:

The Uma screensaver included New dot Net…

And WhenU SaveNow…

And WhenU CrunchGames Bar.

Hmmm...was this screensaver worth it?

Image from ezthemes Uma Thurman screensaver

Other search results also included tierranet.com, which similarly linked to red download sites, and eforu.com, which breached browser security on our test PCs. Watch out boys- Uma’s dangerous.

Close behind are Hilary Duff (Material Girls) with 69% risky search results and Lindsay Lohan (A Prairie Home Companion) and Sandra Bullock (The Lake House), who tied for third at 64%. Apparently this season’s leading ladies pose a greater risk than the leading men: the first male to make our list, Kevin Spacey (Superman Returns), doesn’t come in until number seven.

TOP 10 MOST DANGEROUS ACTORS IN A SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER

Little to fear

Funnyman Shawn Wayans, starring in Little Man, wins the safest actor award: there were no dangerous search links in his screensaver search results. His character may be in danger when he mistakes a vertically-challenged criminal for his adopted son, but, luckily, his fans have little to worry about.

Danger is my middle name

So what makes one movie or actor more dangerous than another?

We could imagine that Uma Thurman and Sandra Bullock’s long and successful careers lend themselves to multiple avenues of attack. But relative newcomers like Lohan and Duff yield roughly similar numbers of unsafe sites. Likewise, Miami Vice might owe some number of its unsafe results to the long reach of the television series. Yet many of the other films in the top 10 are new material.

We do know that the bad guys follow what’s popular. We wonder if they can also predict what will be popular. We invite you to speculate as well. What makes a celebrity or movie ripe for exploitation? Looks, success, gender? Whatever the reason, one thing is certain: this is a real problem.

Viewer discretion advised?

This story is about more than a "top 10" list. It’s about how unscrupulous players profit when they convince movie lovers to make unsafe Web decisions. It would be easy to dismiss this issue with a simple admonition, "Don’t download a screensaver." But there are many safe alternatives to the sites mentioned here. In fact, there are plenty of good Web sites that allow people to safely express their fandom. Take a look at SiteAdvisor's category review of screensaver sites for some safe options. Like the sunscreen that allows a beachgoer to enjoy the day, SiteAdvisor’s safety ratings can guide you to safe Web site choices and help prevent your PC from getting burned.

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