Reviewers' ratings not tabulated on sites pages

[newjack]

In my opinion I still like the way they used to run site advisor.With the reviews on the main page like WOT.As you can see here are just a few discrepancies between the 2. Alot of the Wot reviews are in red on these sites.Where some of site ad are not even reviewed?

[pharmalert]

There are countless examples that we can quote.  Let's just choose one -

ordermeds.ca

Looking at the Mywot rating, we find it is listed by Legitscript as

This pharmacy website is "rogue" due to unlawful, unsafe or deceptive practices.

Dated Sept 16, 2010 - over a year ago.

It rates as very poor across the categories

- Trustworthiness

- Vendor reliability

- Privacy

- Child safety

There are 6 user reviews citing evidence of untrustworthiness and fraud.

A fuller disclosure of the fraudulent nature of the web site is listed at the spamtrackers wiki

The registrar in India, faced with that evidence, suspended the domain name on October 4.

Compare that with the McAfee Site Advisor rating

We tested this site and didn't find any significant problems.

Thankfully the registrar PublicDomainRegistry.com Inc and Web of Trust are offering protection to consumers. McAfee Site Advisor is offering a green tick.

Message was edited by: pharmalert fixed a typo on 10/9/11 6:51:24 PM CDT

[newjack]

I Agree with 100% Pharmalert.There are hundreds of sites like that.This is just an example I posted.That is why I think the reviews belong where they were.Then the user can decide if they think it is safe to go to the site.Especially  the ones they don`t normally frequent.

[Nodus]

To the credit of McAfee's technical staff I have to say that they now have done a great job in getting rid of the performance problem that has more or less been bothering us since June 2010. This has been seen after the maintenance break a couple of days ago, and for the first time I can tell the bulk submission speeds are at the level of the time before June 2010. Great job there!

I don't know if they fixed anything else, but unfortunately the main issue of this thread, the absence of the rating summary, is still true. And user reviews are still hidden. So, we are not exactly there yet...

Also, I'm wondering if someone forgot to "turn back on" the Top 10 listings after the maintenance? Don't tell me that's one more thing on purpose. Not that those would be that important per se (except perhaps the reputation listing in order to keep an eye on possible misbehavings).

[AlphaCentauri]

I'd like to try to summarize:

- People trust McAfee

- SiteAdvisor carries McAfee's brand, making its ratings carry tremendous authority among people who may not have the training to do their own independent research into which websites are safe and trustworthy

- SiteAdvisor rates sites based on automated crawling by a bot. This can allow quick identification of malware downloads

- However, there are intrinsic limitations to that method: Your bot cannot evaluate whether a site is making false claims; your bot only follows links from the home page, which may not lead to the dangerous/fraudulent pages; your bot could but doesn't evaluate how long a domain has been registered; your bot could but doesn't check to see if the registration details, nameservers, or IP address are shared with known dangerous/fraudulent sites; your bot seems to be overloaded and unable to crawl new sites as fast as they are registered, let alone make repeated visits the way search engines do.

- Human volunteers have been filling in these gaps at no cost to McAfee. We do it as a public service to make the internet safer for people like our friends and relatives who simply don't know how to identify a dangerous website. (Some people do volunteer work cleaning up vacant lots; we investigate internet scams.)

- SiteAdvisor used to have several customer service techs who worked closely with the most active reviewers. They knew who we were and knew we were reliable contributors. They created a bulk reviewing tool and gave us privileged access. Those people seem to no longer be associated with SiteAdvisor. There no longer seems to be anyone who is familiar with the website and how it works. When other people get roped into replying to our concerns, they have no idea what we're talking about and make statements that don't make any sense to people who are familiar with the website

- User reviews NEVER had any effect on McAfee's color rating. They have always been supplemental information only. McAfee's rating depends only on its own rating algorithm

- SiteAdvisor boils a complex set of trust factors down to three colors to rate sites, so those colors carry a lot of weight. Green may mean "no malware on the homepage" to McAfee engineers, but it means "a completely safe and trustworthy place to post my credit card number" to the average internet user.

- Previously, users of your software could go to your website for more information, but now only long term users will be aware that there is more information to be learned. User reviews are completely hidden

- While SiteAdvisor is frequently criticized for failing to rate the websites of small businesses for months on end, they seem to be johnny-on-the-spot at providing green ratings for recently registered scam sites.

- By rating sites green instead of leaving them grey, you are actively endorsing them as safe, with all the authority of the McAfee brand. You aren't just standing by idly while scammers steal people's money and identities; you're helping them commit the fraud with your big green check marks.

[Nodus]

AlphaCentauri pretty much nailed it there. Now just hoping someone in some meaningful position at McAfee would read that very carefully and take it to heart. I have nothing more to add.

[pharmalert]

Here is an example that should be close to McAfee's heart. Obscuring reviewers' comments is a bad idea. If this example doesn't sink in then there is no hope left for them. Note how long ths site has existed.

Domain Name: MCAFEECSECURE.COM

Registrar: BIZCN.COM, INC.

Creation Date: 27-dec-2010

mcafeecsecure.com

We've tested millions of websites, but we haven't tested this one yet.  Be the first one to submit feedback on it!

If anyone ventures into the reviewer's comments at http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/mcafeecsecure.com/msgpage you find that it is a fraud being perpetrated on McAfee itself, that they have not yet detected.  By concealing the reviewers' comments the owner of the McAfee Secure service is left unaware of this embarrassing situation. And that owner is McAfee themselves.

The expression "shooting yourself in the foot" seems apt under the circumstances.

Message was edited by: pharmalert on 10/17/11 2:42:29 AM CDT

[NotBuyingIt]

Hmmmm... Odd coincidence about the domain registration date.

Domain Name:MCAFEESECURITYSCAN.INFO

Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com Inc. 

Created On:27-Dec-2010 
Updated On:21-Mar-2011 
Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com Inc. 

Registrant Organization:Domains by Proxy, Inc.

[Hayton]

And another one ...

These sites were used to download the Zero Access rootkit (see below). I put in a warning review on the second one but of course, there are no indications on the front page that anything is amiss.

[Hayton]

And how about this one?  I added the statutory warning review to the one already there, but ...