Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Very interesting. This could prevent millions of people from loading up their machines with viruses and other types of malware when they think they're just downloading a free font or signing up for a newsletter. <[>But I feel just a tad ambivalent. I know and trust folks at StopBadWare. It's in part a Berkman venture. And it makes 100% sense as a plug-in. But although Google is of course technically an edge app, in the geopolitics of the Net, it's a sort of upper-stack center (if that made any sense), so it makes me just a tad anxious when it begins dis-recommending (dreckommending?) sites. On the other hand, if Google used StopBadWare's data to lower the page rank of malefactors, I wouldn't feel as anxious, so I think I'm just being irrational. Overall, giving users a tool — especially one as open as StopBadWare — for avoiding tricksters and traps is a positive step. [NOTE (added the next day): I should have noted that I'm an advisor to a company (SiteAdvisor) that has a plugin that does roughly what StopBadWare does. I like both organizations and have no financial reason to shill for SiteAdvisor.] [Tags: google stopbadware malware]

Posted by D. Weinberger at August 7, 2006 01:59 PM