Who's watching the watchers? (StopBadware blacklists a cartoon book site)
Capefeare.com is described as "The Ultimate Life in Hell Website" and contains some scans of Matt Groening's first work, Life in Hell (I was a huge fan - these hip cartoons ran in the Village Voice and other places in the unhip 1980s).
Copyright issues notwithstanding, the site seems to have no evil intentions. It's not selling software. Afaik, it didn't try to install anything on my computer.
The site has a straightforward description:
...Here, you'll find information about Matt Groening's first work ever, Life in Hell, which started in 1980 long before the Simpsons became popular. Here, you will find Life in Hell comic strips that came from magazines or newspapers that aren't published in any Life in Hell books! There are also Life in Hell references in the Simpsons/Futurama vice versa, lists of Life in Hell books (14 of them), and even Life in Hell wallpapers! This is heaven for any Life in Hell fan!
That sounded pretty good to me. And yes, it could be a lie.
When I found this site through Google, the Google link didn't take me to the site. Instead, it warned me that I'd be taking a great risk if I opened the page:
The search:
The response (http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http://capefeare.com):
Not listed at StopBadware.org - what's the issue?
The site is not listed at http://stopbadware.org/, which at this writing has 412 sites in its catalog.
So, I'm confused. I didn't study the site in depth, but I did take a look at the source code of the home page and can't find anything evil there. It has a some Google Syndication stuff. There is a stats link for the tracking site "extremetracking.com" and 1 pixel web bug for "extreme-dm.com".
I hate that stuff, particularly the web bug, but "everybody uses" the damned things, and the presence of a web bug definitely doesn't make a page "badware." Most important, web bugs and stats links don't "harm" a computer - the thing that StopBadware.org is supposed to be protecting us against.
The site seems to be legit. There's even a large and active Simpsons fan forum, among other cues that suggest that it's on the up and up. Again, it could all be a lie, but it doesn't seem to be.
Appeal. That's the only recourse.
So, many questions remain: Who's watching the watchers? Who corrects the mistakes, and who pays for lost business when a commercial site ends up in being banned? And why is this site banned if StopBadware.org doesn't seem to know anything about it?
This matter has all the marks of a coordination issue between the blacklisting source (stopbadware.org) and the information provider (Google), and nobody outside that circle can probably fix it.
Here's what StopBadware.org says about making "an appeal" to be removed from the listings:
If you are the administrator of a website or the producer of software that has appeared in a StopBadware.org report and would like to speak with us regarding the evaluation of your site/software, please contact us at appeals@stopbadware.org.
My e-mail to the organization's contact address, asking what's up with this, yielded a canned reply saying that they're receiving too much e-mail to be able to answer e-mail.
So, if updates and corrections don't happen in a timely fashion, what can a little guy do? Sue Google and StopBadware.org (at Harvard's Law School)? Not likely.
Thanks, but...
I commend everyone involved for trying to solve a terrible problem.
But when the only recourse for a mis-listed site is to send an "appeal" to a blind e-mail drop, I'm left wondering if more must be done to guard against incorrect listings. Getting the attention of StopBadware.org creates an unremovable global ban on a web site, damaging its reputation (deservedly in most cases, to be sure).
But the good done in most cases cannot excuse errors, or undo the damage they cause, particularly when the well meaning people behind StopBadware.org are also very involved in monitoring, reporting about, and railing against net censorship in China and other places.
Copyright issues notwithstanding, the site seems to have no evil intentions. It's not selling software. Afaik, it didn't try to install anything on my computer.
The site has a straightforward description:
...Here, you'll find information about Matt Groening's first work ever, Life in Hell, which started in 1980 long before the Simpsons became popular. Here, you will find Life in Hell comic strips that came from magazines or newspapers that aren't published in any Life in Hell books! There are also Life in Hell references in the Simpsons/Futurama vice versa, lists of Life in Hell books (14 of them), and even Life in Hell wallpapers! This is heaven for any Life in Hell fan!
That sounded pretty good to me. And yes, it could be a lie.
When I found this site through Google, the Google link didn't take me to the site. Instead, it warned me that I'd be taking a great risk if I opened the page:
The search:
The response (http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http://capefeare.com):
Not listed at StopBadware.org - what's the issue?
The site is not listed at http://stopbadware.org/, which at this writing has 412 sites in its catalog.
So, I'm confused. I didn't study the site in depth, but I did take a look at the source code of the home page and can't find anything evil there. It has a some Google Syndication stuff. There is a stats link for the tracking site "extremetracking.com" and 1 pixel web bug for "extreme-dm.com".
I hate that stuff, particularly the web bug, but "everybody uses" the damned things, and the presence of a web bug definitely doesn't make a page "badware." Most important, web bugs and stats links don't "harm" a computer - the thing that StopBadware.org is supposed to be protecting us against.
The site seems to be legit. There's even a large and active Simpsons fan forum, among other cues that suggest that it's on the up and up. Again, it could all be a lie, but it doesn't seem to be.
Appeal. That's the only recourse.
So, many questions remain: Who's watching the watchers? Who corrects the mistakes, and who pays for lost business when a commercial site ends up in being banned? And why is this site banned if StopBadware.org doesn't seem to know anything about it?
This matter has all the marks of a coordination issue between the blacklisting source (stopbadware.org) and the information provider (Google), and nobody outside that circle can probably fix it.
Here's what StopBadware.org says about making "an appeal" to be removed from the listings:
If you are the administrator of a website or the producer of software that has appeared in a StopBadware.org report and would like to speak with us regarding the evaluation of your site/software, please contact us at appeals@stopbadware.org.
My e-mail to the organization's contact address, asking what's up with this, yielded a canned reply saying that they're receiving too much e-mail to be able to answer e-mail.
So, if updates and corrections don't happen in a timely fashion, what can a little guy do? Sue Google and StopBadware.org (at Harvard's Law School)? Not likely.
Thanks, but...
I commend everyone involved for trying to solve a terrible problem.
But when the only recourse for a mis-listed site is to send an "appeal" to a blind e-mail drop, I'm left wondering if more must be done to guard against incorrect listings. Getting the attention of StopBadware.org creates an unremovable global ban on a web site, damaging its reputation (deservedly in most cases, to be sure).
But the good done in most cases cannot excuse errors, or undo the damage they cause, particularly when the well meaning people behind StopBadware.org are also very involved in monitoring, reporting about, and railing against net censorship in China and other places.
posted by Jim at 6:58 PM
4 Comments:
Do you distinguish between outright censorship (such as China's government) and Google placing a warning page in its search hits? Does Google have an obligation to link to sites?
What is your solution? It would seem that any "appeals" process would be clogged by actually bad sites, too - doesn't that make anything but e-mail impracticable?
Good questions.
The most fundamental problem with a blind blacklisting is that there's no way to evaluate Google's complaint with the page.
The backlisting process must be a fully closed loop. Failure to include the site in the database at stopbadware.org, prior to blacklisting, is a serious failing.
Openness is a big part of "the solution" to the problem I noted in the post.
Without it, there is no way for a visitor such as myself to assess the validity or scope of the reasons for blacklisting. And there's no way for an innocent (perhaps victimized) site owner to learn how to fix the problem and get back in Google's good graces.
Any process that must fall back to "appeals" is in its very design quite vulnerable to message overload that can have negative unwanted side effects for both third parties and the listings service itself.
The matter of whether Google is 'obligated' to link to sites is an academic matter that's been under debate since newspapers were found to not be obligated to carry paid advertisements.
However, there is a matter of fundamental fairness here, as well as potential libel situation in that Google is actively stepping in and "warning" people not to go to the site in question. It is also in Google's self-interest to not ban sites incorrectly, and in StopBadware's interest to be sure that it is perceived as accurate and fair in its blacklistings... otherwise, both will fall in favor. There are mutual needs and risks here.
StopBadware.org would do well to tighten the process so that no site is ever blindly blacklisted without a substantive explanation of the reasons.
E-mail blacklisting sites such as RBL are effective in stopping spam and make their listings (and the reasons for listing) known. In my opinion, as someone who maintains servers for myself and others, the public availability of that information about the blacklists does not impede their effectiveness. Those who are blacklisted, know they are blacklisted, whether they are listed in a database or not.
Here's the one thing that can perhaps top this. StopBadware blacklists a reputable anti-spyware site.
Wow, check out the "Networking in Hell" poster for sale on eBay. A take off on the "Life in Hell" series done by Groening for Apple Computer back in the '80s.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230161836601
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