For about an hour on Saturday morning, Google listed every site on the Internet as malware.
After the initial problem was fixed, it took a couple of hours to iron out who actually was the blame–Google or a nonprofit known as StopBadware.org.
TechCrunch and CNET reported around 7 a.m. PST that every site found via Google search was flagged with this message: “This site may harm your computer.” As part of Google’s malware protection, clicking on a flagged site’s link would not pull it up.
Now THAT’S protection!
Google = Skynet
It has begun!
This morning when I tried to update my Opera browser, Google interrupted and stopped me, saying Opera was malware. Reminded me of the old says when Microsoft had special code on their WWW site to harrass Opera users.
Now around 5 hours later, the problem has been fixed.
I didn’t notice, I was googleing for some unauthorized copys of a book at the time, I just thought it was highly effective…
This is a massive slip for Google, I’m amazed it managed to last for 45 mins on what is probably the most popular site on the net.
At least they’ve been up front with the problem and admit it was a human error – it happens to everyone at some point!
#1 see’s the light..
heh, -i can see this “feature” being abused to no end when the new IT nazi division in congress gets around to redefining what constitutes malware..
=s
Give them credit for owning up to the problem. Now, lets every body start thinking about how fragile we are when we all depend on one company for everything. It could be MicroSoft next. Or PayPal. When we depend so heavily on just one source, they better not fail.
You would think they’d write a few automated integration or functional tests for their core product. Come on Google, surely someone inside your company knows how to use Selenium?
WOW, its a good thing Google cannot erase malware like a anti virus program or it could have wiped out most of the internet.
I was online yesterday from 5 am PST & using google. Didn’t happen to me once.
This happened to me yesterday morning, so out of curiosity, I googled “Google”, and it told me that “google.com” was a malevolent site.
How come no mention is made of how many times GMAIL is kaput?
How is it that no mention is made of how many times GMAIL is kaput?
“You mean the entire internet isn’t malware?”
No. But it is all spyware. After it feeds thru the government eavesdropping machinery. That’s why “they” turned the Arpanet over to civilian use as The Internet. Before that, we had a bunch of isolated private and commercial networks, relaying emails. Remember Prodigy, and Crash Mail? The Feds figured that they either had to wiretap all the phone lines carrying this traffic. Or give us an alternative (they already had monitoring feeds into) for very little cost to the general public. It was cheaper that paying for a long distance phone service (dial up connection).