The Life and Times of Mister Poll

Yes, this afternoon, I received an official response from my StopBadware.org appeal:

It appears that your site no longer hosts or distributes badware. We
have informed Google of this finding.

Please note that we will be retesting your website at periodic intervals
in order to monitor that it remains free from badware. If we find that
you are hosting or distributing badware in the future, the appeals
process may take considerably longer than the original appeal.

My Translation:

Oh, well, we didn’t find anything wrong with your site after all. That whole blacklisting thing wasn’t really founded. We may still block your site again at any time though, and your future appeals for our repeated mistakes will take considerably longer than this one did.

Gee, thanks for nothing.

I received a comment yesterday from Kristie, who runs a dog blog called Ask Chewie. Her web site is now being blocked by Google with the same “malware” advisory that plagued Mister Poll last week. The story is the same. She discovered the block due to an unexplained and severe drop in her traffic, with no notice or communications from Google or StopBadware.org. Will this unreasonable conduct never end? If you’d like to help Kristie, send your complaints to appeals@stopbadware.org and help@google.com.

It’s time to give a bit of credit where it’s due. My original blog post about Google and StopBadware.org generated some attention, and two people from those organizations responded with a helpful attitude. Matt Cutts from Google posted a comment pointing out a Mister Poll user who was trying to exploit our system. Earlier this evening, John Palfrey from StopBadware.org emailed me with news that his group is currently working with its partners to send me specific information about what triggered the badware advisory in the first place. I don’t think it’s officially either of these gentlemen’s jobs to handle communication of this nature, but I certainly appreciate them stepping in and lending a hand where others fell down. Thanks. I’m hopeful that this situation will be resolved on a positive note and that a more inclusive official process will result.

Yes! A little justice for breakfast today. Sometime this morning, Google removed the malware advisory for the Mister Poll web site. I was up quite late last night reading blog comments and continuing to research — about 4AM Pacific time. The advisory was still in place at that time. When I got up this morning, my internet connection was down thanks to a massive wind storm that swept through last night. Thankfully it was only down for hours this time instead of the 4 days the last wind storm caused. When I was finally able to check again, I saw the good news.

Again, I’ve received no communications from Google or StopBadware, so I don’t know what triggered them to correct things. I can’t help but think it was due to the buzz this generated and the complaints that many of you sent their way. The timing is very coincidental, and the fact that it happened early on a Saturday with no feedback from their official appeals process would seem to confirm this. I truly thank you all for your help. You rock!

I do believe the original blog entry is still relevant, and the fact that the problem was corrected doesn’t change the fact that it happened in the first place. It could, and probably has, happened to other sites. For all I know, it could happen to Mister Poll again. I don’t know that any processes have changed to prevent repeat occurrences. If that fact bothers you, I would still recommend you write Google and/or StopBadware to complain about the policy (or lack of one). As one reader pointed out, Google’s security team is probably not the right channel for this, and using it as such could be interpreted as bad behavior as well. If anybody can find a more appropriate Google contact, please let me know and I’ll be glad to post it here. It was simply the best I could find after digging through Google’s sparse contact information.

Thanks again to everybody who helped spread the word and right this wrong. It’s good to know that a vocal group of people can still make a difference.

For those suspicious types who may need further proof that we’re the innocent good guys, somebody sent me this:

McAfee’s SiteAdvisor report for Mister Poll

They give us a good safety rating. How can you argue with that lovely green check? Too bad they don’t own the dominant search engine.

UPDATE:  Google has lifted the malware advisory!

We have run the Mister Poll web site for the last 8 years, and it’s been mostly a joy. We have a large and loyal user community, and we enjoy providing a valuable service. I was shocked to discover yesterday morning that all we have worked for is now suddenly in jeapordy.

Our web site traffic is very regular and predictable. Yesterday I noticed that it had plummeted to about half its normal volume. Something serious was amiss, but I had no clue what it was. After some digging around, I discovered that every Google search result pointing to our web site now bears this Google-sponsored advisory:

Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!

See for yourself right here or in this screen shot.

Excuse me?! What is this about? We received no notice. No complaints. No opportunity to disprove or correct any issues. Just WHAM … cut our legs out from under us. Digging further, this seems to be related to an organization called StopBadware.org. Their self-appointed mission is to rid the world of “badware” - evil software that may install itself on your computer and damage things. A decent goal, but their methods are downright thuggish.

From what I can glean, it works this way. If they receive an anonymous complaint about a web site, they will put you on a “bad” list which is then supplied to Google, who is also one of their financial investors. Google immediately blocks all search results to that web site with that horrific, and in my view libelous, warning. All of this is done with no investigation into the validity of the complaint. So overnight, at the whim of anybody who wants to file a complaint, an entire business can be shut down. Unbelievable. For a company whose motto is “Don’t be evil“, this feels downright sinister.

We are very responsible with our web site. The only ads we run are from Google AdSense. We hand-review every user-created poll before it’s published in the Mister Poll directory. Our web site screens out harmful HTML and scripting before displaying any user-created content. Could there be a hole that we haven’t found which some unscrupulous user is exploiting? Sure. I can’t find one, but every piece of software has bugs. If somebody had notified me of a problem, I would have fixed it immediately. It could also be somebody who was pissed off that their poll wasn’t approved and decided to file a false report. The problem is that nobody bothered to check, and we weren’t given a chance to fix any real problem that might exist. We were convicted and sentenced without even being notified first. Guilty until proven innocent. Shoot first and ask questions later. Apparently this is the Google way.

The only recourse we seem to have is to file an appeal with StopBadware.org. Their appeals process takes at least 10 business days. In the meantime, Google continues to badmouth our web site to the entire world, labeling it as dangerous and poisonous. Tell me that won’t leave a lasting negative impact, even if we are able to work this out in the end.

I’d love to stage a “call to arms”, but I honestly don’t know how to bring about change here. Google rules the world. If you are a Mister Poll user and would like to help the site, I would suggest emailing Google at security@google.com to complain. They seem to think this is a security-related issue, and they aren’t very free with their contact info, so this is the best email address I could find.

For others that find this overall situation disturbing, I hope that raising awareness will help. It could be your business or favorite web site that is hit next. Please pass a link to this blog entry along to anybody else you think might care. Also, I plan on filing a StopBadware.org complaint against StopBadware.org itself, and possibly against Google.com, for hijacking and blocking my personal search results without my permission. If you feel like helping, perhaps you could do the same. Let’s see if their systems are automated enough to actually block themselves.

I’m open to other suggestions as well. Please leave a comment if you have other ideas on how to fight back. A vote at digg wouldn’t hurt either. We would greatly appreciate your support.