Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Christina Olsen is giving a Tuesday lunch talk at the Berkman Center. She says that StopBadware.org is "neighborhood watch for the Internet," finding sites you want to avoid. It's based theoretically on Jonathan Zittrain's work on generativity. JZ favors open PCs and and open network, but the openness also means that bad actors can create badware that may create a backlash and a demand to lock down PCs or put gatekeepers in place. To avoid that, StopBadware.org addresses the badware problem. [[Disclosure: I'm an advisor to SiteAdvisor.com].

StopBadware has a set of guidelines that defines badware as an application that acts deceptively or irreversibly (e.g., an app that installs sw you don't want and/or provides no way to uninstall it), or that "engages in potentially objectionable behavior" without first requiring the user to opt in with the full facts presented to her.

StopBadware creates reports based on data from its partners. There's also a community that provides data. They are aiming at having a distributed app that draws on the "wisdom of the crowd."

Google filters its search results and sends people to StopBadware.org for more info about dicy sites that turn up in search results.

In 2006, StopBadware developed 24 in-depths reports and 414 quick reports on badware hosting sites. They received 2,658 badware story submissions from the community. There are 618 people in the discussion group. in 2007, StopBadware wants to do 2 in-depth reports per week, and organize the community to generate more quick reports. They also want to bulid the tech community around the badware issue.

More specifically, StopBadware is hoping to:

Implement XML-based reports...more details, more semantics.

"Continue the development of automated crawling and malware detection of submitted applications."

Increase automation throughout the process. It should be easier to submit suspected badware and easier to appeal.

More partnerships.

Localize reports for non-English speakers.

Integrate with Firefox

The "wisdom of the crowds" app draws on the experience of the user community. It involves a downloadable piece of software that looks to see if a user's website contains badware.

Christine raises to this group what the principles should be for the appeals process, and what are the criteria for being "happy" with a user experience.

Q: (a cowboy) People get more frustrated when computers work as they should then when they work as they shouldn't. The subjective experience is much more powerful than the objective one.

Ethanz responds that the people who are likely to download the distributed app are a self-selected, technical group. (Someone jokes, "Wouldn't it be great if there were a way to put the app on people's desktops without them knowing...maybe if they just are downloading a Jessica Simpson screensaver...")