by Brian Kraemer Feb 2, 2009
Over the weekend something strange happened to Google search results. For almost an hour on January 31, every site that Google returned in a search result was tagged with the message, "This site may harm your computer." In fact, most of those sites wouldn't harm a user's computer. Instead an inadvertent keystroke deemed any Web site with "/" in the URL as potentially malicious. Writing on the Official Google Blog Marissa Mayer, vice president, search products and user experience, Google, addressed the issue. "This was clearly an error, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to our users," wrote Mayer. Google actively works to inform its users about Web sites with malicious intent. It appears that in this case an errant keystroke and a human error caused the problem to happen over the weekend. "We maintain a list of such sites through both manual and automated methods," wrote Mayer. "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." Part of the protection that Google offers dictates that the list be updated periodically. Over the weekend, it appears that a Googler included the URL of "/" to the malicious site list, which unfortunately expands to every Web site on the Internet.
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