This Site May Harm Your Computer (Another product of Google’s laziness?)
“Sergei didn’t know HTML, and he really wasn’t all that interested in learning. What he was really passionate about doing was building a search engine, was building a product that worked. And so he put together the homepage as a way to get the service up and running as quickly as possible. In many ways the Google homepage that you see today – in some respects you could claim that it was almost a happy byproduct of laziness on his part.” – Jen Fitzpatrick, Engineering Director, from her presentation, “The Science and Art of the User Experience at Google.”
It’s getting to the point where I can almost guess when there’s going to be some sort of Google weirdness. In the last few days I’ve seen bunch of significant shifts shifts in how the Googlebot regards ComstockFilms.com; the sort of early warning tremors I’ve got in the habit of looking out for (and dreading.)
Well this morning the earthquake hit. As of 10AM EST, Google is showing the “This site may harm your computer” warning on all search returns. Not all search returns for [comstock films]. Not all search returns for sex related searches. All search returns.
Two years ago, when the Google sex search bug story broke, I read more than a few snarky remarks from folks who were dismissive of the various concerns raised about how much economic and social power was vested in Google’s algorithm. ”What did you expect? You think about sex too much. Don’t be surprised when it bites you on the ass.”
Two years later this is a topic of conversation on the cover of The Atlantic magazine, with leading thinkers pondering what the homogenization of the internet, with Google as its ultimate and unrivaled gatekeeper.
As to the Google’s laziness business; that’s not my description, that’s Googles — straight out of a lecture from a Google senior engineer. The YouTube clip is embedded above. I first posted it in my rant about difference between Google SafeSearch results for [clitoris] vs. the SafeSearch results for [penis]. If you didn’t watch it then, maybe take a few minutes to watch it now. Google, an operation that is self-described as a “product of laziness” is the ultimate arbiter of the internet, and this morning we’re all malware.
UPDATE:
Here’s Google’s explanation:
What happened? Very simply, human error. Google flags search results with the message “This site may harm your computer” if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. We do this to protect our users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. We maintain a list of such sites through both manual and automated methods. We work with a non-profit called StopBadware.org to come up with criteria for maintaining this list, and to provide simple processes for webmasters to remove their site from the list.
We periodically update that list and released one such update to the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here’s the human error), the URL of ‘/’ was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and ‘/’ expands to all URLs.
Think on that for a moment. An errant bit of data entry and Google blacklisted the entire internet. Yes, it was caught and corrected in minutes. But still, a misplaced ‘/’ and the entire internet turns into malware?
