SiteAdvisor -- strange

I have contacted them. I told them I am turning this over to the FBI. This is serious stuff. 2 years, no incidents, then next day after their last sales pitch a 9/9 ranked reviewer (bot, come on, 2 million reviews) attacks me. It is extortion. You had to hear the phone calls.

I will let the authorities handle this, and am retaining counsel just in case. Yes, my site is GREEN.. but for how long? If I dare criticize McAfee's aggressive and potentially illegal sales practices do I go RED? I like the poster who said I should have just paid up. LOL. Yea, let's all pay McAfee thousands of dollars a year for the right to exist on the internet, lol ((SARCASM)) -- Do NOT pay McAfee for their useless certification.

I mean, this is just like the MOB.. as if I'm paying protection money.

Anyway, few seem to understand. My point is made though. Now that Intel owns them, I hope they clean the mess up. You can bet that I am not going down without a fight though. If they rate my site RED they will be sued.

 

If it does indeed come to that, good luck! I have had a few problems with my shady ISP (British Telecom), which I won't go into here, but if you stand your ground & make enough noise, it is surprising how some of these corporations back down & suddenly become all apologetic.

It never fails to amaze me what some of these (insert expletive of your choice) corporations try to get away with. I think their execs/salespeople have all been reading Sun Tzu too much.

Remember: All warfare is based on deception. ~ Sun Tzu

 

Allow me to understand.

You already contacted with them and asked to review what this bot says in its comment(s)? If they (McAfee) found it clean, to remove such comment(s)?
Did they answer they wouldn't do that? Rather, you'd have to buy a certificate?

If this is was the case, then yes, I'd agree it's extortion. Was it the case?

If the extortion is what is really happening, then don't let them laugh at you!

By the way, which user advised to pay for the certificate? Are you referring to SiteAdvisor users ratings? (If you're mentioning me... I didn't advice such. Just wishing to clarify.)

 

Thank you. Yes, a negative rating would be bad. The last time they had a self-admitted 'mistake' it almost ruined my business. They didn't care though. Not one bit. 3 months later they got around to fixing their own darn mistake.

Too bad I'm in debt and couldn't pay them, as that one poster suggested. Apparently people really think this is a cost of doing business. NO, being forced to pay a security company to protect you against being accused of harboring FAKE threats is EXTORTION.. if that is what is going on here by a few salespeople or by the company. I make no claim that it absolutely is, but the timing is too suspicious.

 

No, but I informed them of the strange rating by this reviewer with 2 million+ reviews. They took no action (as of yet). Other than to briefly take my whole site off their database, then put it back up the same as before - GREEN, except for that bot's malicious post (which REMAINS).

It may have been you I misunderstood. If so, I apologize for misunderstanding. I had heard that comment posted elsewhere on the MANY other sites who complain about inaccurate or misleading SiteAdvisor ratings. They are ruining small businesses left and right, while the 'big guys' who CAN pay the HUGE fees can do whatever they want.

Case in point - FreeCreditReport.com. Their legitimacy is debatable. You sign up for a 'free trial'. In small print, they say if you don't cancel within 7 days, you get billed $14.95 monthly from then on. You know the sort of scam. Well, THAT company has a D rating at the BBB and over 11,500 complaints in the last 36 months at the BBB. Still, not even YELLOW for them. Ok, SiteAdvisor isn't for business practices you say -- maybe it should be.

So, bad guys, so long as nothing is detected as malware can do WHATEVER and the good guys have the pray no 'mistake' is made that cripples their business in the months it takes to get their own (SiteAdvisor's) mistake fixed.

In my case, I really think that bot was an attempt to make me pay. Who runs this bot? Clearly they approve of it. And, does anyone doubt he is a bot? Again - http://user.siteadvisor.com/forums/member.php?u=19138

...

Lastly, it really isn't that laughable to compare this practice to that of the mafia. After all, if I paid them, that's what I'd be paying to protect myself from. Not real threats, only false accusations from McAfee.

 

@moonblood: Yes, I had misunderstood you (just looked) -- when you said:

That is kind of the truth, or how they want the truth to be. They have A LOT of power, as seen the last time they made a mistake. So...

Look, I just wanted to report what was going on mostly to protect myself against them rating me RED for criticizing them.

The authorities can determine who controls that bot and if any salespeople are involved.

 

Well, I did know that McAfee has scare tactics in their e-mails, making people to believe their computers are infected, and they should by McAfee products.

But, considering I had never heard of a situation like yours, regarding SiteAdvisor, I was wondering if all was nothing but a tremendous coincidence, the contact to buy the certificate, that is.

I may have misunderstood you initial post, as well. It also sounds improbable for a human to have as many post as that "user". When I first looked at it, I saw "1,278.06 posts per day", and for some reason associated with the number of posts since 2006, which could be plausible, I suppose. Not "2,047,009" posts... sounds off, indeed.

But, considering that by now I'm aware of what truly happened, indeed it all sounds off.

I just hope you're able to get things right, as they should.

 

Thanks moonblood. I get upset and I often type/write badly, so I am easy to misunderstand. I am glad you agree something doesn't seem right. I don't understand why bots even are allowed to exist. Well, whatever.. let's pray I don't go RED all the sudden for some made up reason. If so, I guess I'll have no choice but to devote my life to suing those people. My family depends on my business income. If I lose it for even a month, I'm dead. DEAD. I'd have to start legal proceedings then. I can't have another situation like I did with their last mistake, I couldn't survive it.

Perhaps others will now step forward and tell of similar stories, as I KNOW I am not the only one....

 

Awful situation, indeed. You could, besides any legal actions, which always take their time, do what I mentioned. Provide explanatory information at your website regarding this situation and point your website ratings to other services like the ones I mentioned.

I a list with alike services, which I have to find the file where I saved such services urls.

I mean, it's a start. This will let users know that, in fact, the rating by that bot/user is nothing but a misleading comment/rating. These users, in turn, would perhaps let their friends and relatives, using McAfee SiteAdvisor, that things are, at least, a bit shady.

 

I intend to do that, as have other sites --
http://www.snapfiles.com/siteadvisor.html
http://siteadvisorclassaction.blogspot.com/2008/06/mcafee-site-advisor-run-amuck.html
Google for HUNDREDS (or maybe thousands) of other incidents

MY STORY will stay published here:
http://bitsum.blogspot.com/

If this was just some strange coincidence after 2 years suddenly a bot makes a negative review right after I say I can't pay... Well, even then, I'd still like to know why they allow this bot to go around making accusations. I mean, most sites don't encourage bots... And there really seems to be a circumstantial connection of this bot and their certification sales team (or a portion of it).

Reviewer Central (shows all reviewers): http://www.siteadvisor.com/analysis/reviewercentral/

Notice the BOT that posted on my site is their TOP rated BOT in count, (pharmalert), so there can be no lack of awareness of the issue.

And, yes, I will ask them to remove that malicious review that has no proof or backing evidence of any kind, and see what they say. However, after last telling my contact she should 'come clean' now before she is charged too in the eventual investigation by the FBI, I am not sure she will respond. FWIW, she hasn't, to any of my mail, since this happened. Of course, my mailings weren't the friendliest in the world... I did demand an explanation though.

Intel (the new owner), please clean house. You made a purchase of a highly dysfunctional unit as a whole. The entire operation from top to bottom needs cleaned out. I deal with security companies all the time as part of my work. NONE have demonstrated the apathy of McAfee. It is as if they want to be sued.

 

About the stupid bots (or humans) making declarations of what is red or not you should check Nirsoft and his struggles, over the years! http://blog.nirsoft.net/category/antivirus-issues/ Here is good one Antivirus companies cause a big headache to small developers Download all his stuff, do a scan with X AV if it even permits downloading package that is. Very good test of how little you can trust scan result. Is not necessarily a shocker whatever you have on site can get flagged. Your suspicion sticks deeper than that but don't expect too much from bots.

Since this is a known "feature" for many years I think the real problem is Mcafee and others (including WOT) do not have a strategy for how to deal with it. They should of course not contact an obvious malware domain and ask for a meeting. But on the other hand they should also not blacklist/warn against obvious legit sites, not without further human based check. I know WOT encourage site admins to chat on a forum. If I had a business that would not an approved solution. I would not be interested in talking with whoever random person from the internet. WOT them self should take the initiative in cases where question marks are huge and many. Figure it out! Dont know current level of interest by Norton, Mcafee but they are worse as in there is very little you can do to change judgement. You can find sites where users are commenting like mad, warning away or the opposite and nothing really seem to happen. WOT is more direct in comparison but from a legit site admins point of view they should provide the "proof" so to avoid jumping to conclusions, making mistakes.

 

I agree. Remember, these companies are making a HUGE profit. They need to invest some of that in making sure their results are reliable. Instead, it surely goes to CEO bonuses or to shareholder dividends. That's how corporations do things. I guess maybe nothing will ever change that... unless somehow consumers finally banded together and 'shut down' these unethical companies by not doing business with them. Unlikely ;(

 

jcollake! I know exactly how it feels. I’m now speaking out about McAfee and the SiteAdvisor product. I started by posting about this all and by adding big bold red text centered onto the near top of my message board index page labeled ‘McAfee SiteAdvisor RED flagging MntOlympus’ that points to my post.

Further steps will be made, but it is good to band together and be informative about the problems with McAfee company and the product SiteAdvisor.

I wish you all the best in your mission.

 

Yes, it is important to band together. My site is GREEN (has been this whole time), so I am taking a big personal risk in doing this. Most people, once they finally get their problem solved, say 'Thank God' and don't dare do anything to ~ Snipped as per TOS ~ McAfee. In this world, there is justice, and right now big corporations are not behaving as they should. Sometimes it takes lawsuits to 'spank' them for their greed (which is the motivating factor every time).

So, who will actually stand and fight? What site owners will? We will see.

The number of businesses, and subsequent families they have hurt is untold. If you go to legal forums, you will be told that false positives aren't actionable. They say that to everyone. This is not true at all. More than one case has been brought, and WON against McAfee itself and SiteAdvisor.

Although my site stays Green, I take a personal offense to any reviewer bot saying my site has malicious software. They can try to say they are not liable for the comments of bots, but the problem is that bots are really algorithms. Their presence is obvious, given the review counts, so they give implicit permission for these algorithms to operate on their databases.

As for my possible extortion... I still wonder, would they really get that ballsy? I just don't know. I mean, if you heard them on the phone.. You'd see. You know how 'that type' are. Buy TODAY. Right NOW. Every time you hear that, you know something isn't right.

 

Quote from their McAfee Secure Certification Marketing Materials (emailed to me from mcafee.com, so absolute proof):

"Annotation in Search Results – McAfee’s SiteAdvisor (www.siteadvisor.com) is a free download that is being used on over 350 million computers. It adds the McAfee SECURE trust mark next to the green check mark in 20 + search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc…) for our clients. This makes your result jump off the page. Here’s a link to what this looks like: http://www.mcafeesecure.com/ms/?p=4"

That's right, 350 million is the install base. So, to those who say, "But there are those who DON'T USE this or that", well.. there are OVER 350 MILLION that do (according to McAfee's own figures). This has surely grown by now and may not even be all-inclusive on indirect usage/reliance (e.g. viewership in search engines).

 

Strangely, I am now watching the post count of that bot decrease. It was the #1 poster by count, again highly visible.. so no secret. Perhaps they are covering their ~ Snipped as per TOS ~ already? It was 2million+ only hours ago.

Actually, I think this is a fluctuation as they take sites 'offline' to rescan them.. but I'm still not sure. It seems to go up, and down.

 

I asked why a specious negative remark was made by a reviewer bot, and informed them that they are liable for it. We'll see if my contact replies, or if they are taking this seriously. I am risking it all to defend other businesses that get routinely victimized. Watch my site rating. If it goes RED due to my criticisms, then we'll know they have no validity what-so-ever, meaning it is simple defamation to some 350+ million users (by their own count).

 

At what cost though? Appearing insane? Most people would assume I'm crazy to think someone tried to extort me. But I saw it happen. I feel like I saw a UFO, lol. Fortunately I have full documentation of everything, even the phone calls.

I wanted the public to be aware of these practices. I do not know how wide spread they are, but the fact that the #1 (in count) ranked bot did the malicious review suggests.... Well, you guys fill in the blanks.

 

Also, for those looking for updates regarding my request to have McAfee explain that bot's rating and remove it - NO word from McAfee at all, keeping with tradition. I really hope law enforcement takes over. I am SOOOooooo tired of seeing greedy people/corporations get over on the 'lower' classes. From 'free trials' (with hidden membership/renewal fees) to theft, to out-right extortion.. I'm just sick of it. I see it every day, in different forms. The BBB is there, but companies with D and F ratings continue operating and making millions (and remaining GREEN on Site Advisor). Who is looking out for the consumer? And can anyone be trusted to look out for the consumer, or at some point does greed always take over? Even companies that lose big class action lawsuits seem to go right back to doing the same thing, just slightly tweaked... and maybe with a new name. Is this the America we want? AmeriCorp?

 

Is kind of sad you are posting this on a security forum and no one seem to call you insane I guess most are aware security companies have a long history of questionable marketing and are careful not to exclude the option that Mcafee really are using dirty tricks, the step above scare mongering, number juggling via carefully proportioned graphs, inventing weird buzzwords called "features" and such oldies.

 

Yea, I agree. I am preaching to the choir. I will not post anymore, unless McAfee responds (0% chance of that in my opinion). After giving them some time to respond and 'make things right', I will report the incident to the proper authorities and let them look into it to determine if any crime has been committed. Their initial reaction will be to think I'm surely crazy, but a violation of law has occurred, so maybe if I make a concise and compelling presentation I can educate them into understanding how a crime possibly occurred. Maybe relatives I have that work for the FBI can help, maybe not. The deciding factor will be if their superiors care or not. If it was some average Joe, you can bet they would. A corporation? I'd give it a 50/50 shot. Sometimes they seem to care if corporations violate the law, other times they don't and let that get settled in the civil courts.

 

-- LAST one -- Just if anybody ever determines who controls or owns that pharmalert bot, or why McAfee allows these bots (algorithms) to operate on their database, do let me know please. That is the key to whether this was a coincidence, or extortion. It will also allow law enforcement to properly investigate, so you'll be doing your civil duty.

 

Well, SiteAdvisor removed ALL my positive user ratings from the past (which were all positive, except that one that was later recanted), but LEFT the one malicious/malware rating. I hope this isn't a pre-requisite to a full site RED rating, perhaps for my criticisms? because they better be able to prove I host malware.. which I certainly do NOT. I know this can not be proven because it is not true. Oh well.. we'll see I guess. I do not appreciate attacks on my character. I have good cause to question extremely strange timing of a presumed 'accident'. Excuse me for speaking out. How dare I... If I'm not GREEN, then who is.

My site is http://www.bitsum.com BTW ...

Site Advisor rating (has been GREEN for years since that last false positive on MakeService): http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/bitsum.com
There WAS 17 positive reviews there, 2 negative (one recanted tho). Now there is 1 negative by a highest ranking bot reviewer (a normal bot to a normal person that doesn't look closer). Thanks, anonymous bot making vague, non-specific specious accusations. Thanks a bunch. Why did my user comments all disappear? Some were from USERs with rankings of 9/9 -- yes, real people.

 

Weird, they removed all positive reviews

 

Glad I have at least one witness. Yea, WTF. I did have a *temporary* DNS change, for the first time ever, because my web host was having troubles so I went to the backup web server. Turns out it still has a couple quirks, so I then went back to the original (once it finally went back up). Anyway, MAYBE it is due that? But why leave only the RED review? I dunno.

I am not out to be a corporate crusader, I want to get back to work.. preferably WITH the 350 million plus potential clients of SiteAdvisor, without having to PAY them for not dafaming me, which is a possibility given the recent incidents. I mean, I am struggling to explain it, I feel weird saying it is possible. I am careful with my language, it is only possible until proven, but their possible defamation OTH is provable by default (as they made the accusation). Still there is no details on where or what adware I have. None of my software has adware, viruses, or trojans. NONE of it. I don't bundle with toolbars, I don't show ads.. WTF?

Well, so long as my site stays GREEN .. but if it goes RED, then that's just messed up... and I guess they want to escalate this.