McAfee will remove red Site Advisor ratings - for a large fee

The website naturalnews.com was incorrectly rated red by Site Advisor. McAfee offered to remove the red rating for $32,000.

http://www.naturalnews.com/041170_McAfee_Site_Advisor_false_information.html

 

Well done McAfee, I never liked the Site Advisor.

 

Neither have I, as quite often safe sites get a red rating - although at least in theory Site Advisor is a good idea. This is particularly concerning, that they would only remove a wrong red rating only after the payment of a large sum of money.

This would be a big problem for smaller sites, where the owners don't have thousands of dollars to spend to get the rating changed.

 

What's happening has a name - extortion. If the website is clean then give it a green reputation, period. Paying to get it? WTF? I suppose McAfee is taking advantage of the founder's "good" name.

 

Something tells me that it could have been a scammer posing as McAfee.
How did you verify that it was a McAfee person on the other end of the phone?
Just like the people who look at your domain registration expire and send you an email saying your going to lose it if you don't pay them.

Rich

 

After reading the article, it seems to me that its either scammer free (true) or natural news.com spoofed it. If true, extortion is the only word that comes to mind.

If true, its something I would have never believed I'd read about a legit anti-malware company. Amazing and shocking!

 

McAfee = Ransomware Extortionware
Not really a shocker, I mean they have to make money somehow,
after all who would pay for their crappy software.
If the article is accurate it would be just another reason to avoid anything associated with McAfee.

 

If memory isn't failing me, maybe two years ago, someone complained about McAfee and their Site Advisor as well. I think that person also started a threat at Wilders. I believe the person in question was/is involved in the Process Lasso/others software. I think the website is www.\bitsum\.com.

-edit-

Here's the thread in question: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=290710&highlight=bitsum mcafee

So, oops they did it again? I wonder how many ignorant website owners actually may have paid?

 

If this is actually true, it's extortion, plain and simple. Of course McAfee as a company has lost a lot of reputation so I guess why not just go that extra mile.

 

McAfee..................It says it all.

 

It most definitely was McAfee - the red rating was removed when the money ws paid.

If it was a scam naturalnews.com would still be rated red.

 

What a set of blackmailing bastards

They need to pay every penny back with interest & costs etc etc ASAP ! And appologise Very publically too.

Every decent security www needs to name n shame them, Very LOUDLY & not let it die.

I'm pleased that Mike is consulting his legal team, & wish him EVERY success

 

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternativ...eitsnews-being-blocked-by-mcafee-2709408.html

 

This is really getting out of hand.

To be honest, I've never liked Site Advisor. Too many website are given a red rating without evidence given to show that they are in any way unsafe. Posters on Site Advisor often give a website a red red rating without providing any evidence at all to back up their claims. In fact I've been banned a few times on Site Advisor, because I've given a green rating to websites I've downloaded software from and found it to be clean, and got to into arguments by posters there who insist the websites are unsafe despite being able to provide any evidence whatsoever which indicates the website is unsafe.

 

You can see a lot of the same stuff on WOT or any community-dominated rating service. I still find use for them despite the FP's though.

 

Really shameful. They call themselves a security company? They are an extortion company.

They really should go out of business, and if lucky enough, they would get a job cleaning toilets with their own tongues. But, I'm afraid that they would consider it to be a treat.

 

So, the folks behind WOT/others are also extorting website owners to give them a green rating due to "false positives"?

 

Not sure, but I was talking about how the red rating was made in the first place. I remember WOT keeping some clean sites red simply due to bots/user opinion.

 

Which would be why user ratings for such things shouldn't factor in. As for McAfee, the company should be in a courtroom getting a verbal beat down.

 

My problem with Site Advisor was bad malicious sites getting green ratings!