I just observed that whatever we type in Google search, we get an error “This site may harm your computer”. Initially I though I am bitten by some malware/adware/spyware, but was told it is coming for most of my friends, irrespective of the TLD (.com, .co.in, co.hk etc). So, Google bitten by a bug or hacked?
Watch out this space for updates.
Update 1: Updates pouring in that the Official Google Blog has been updated with a clarification. I am unable to access it at this tme as I am getting Server timeout error.
Update 2: Errr… its all fine now! 15 mins of anxiety!! It almost got twitter out of gear!!
Update 3: It’s been reported google’s malware partner http://www.stopbadware.org went down causing the warning in Google search
Update4: And finally the official confirmation on the official Google Blog. I was right on stopbadware.org!
Update5: Well well, I have another update, the blame game has started, stopbadware.org has put up a statement denying that their file containing the URLs as the reason for the mayhem! Ummm… surely this wont be the last update 
My question to Google is – “Why can’t you automate the process of file uploading, thereby avoiding unnecessary human errors?”
Update6: And here is the update on google blog. It’s not stopbadware who is the culprit, but Google itself!!
And my question is partly answered – “We maintain a list of such sites through both manual and automated methods.” Why partly manual?
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Related Posts:
January 31st, 2009 at 5:15 pm
maybe you have something enabled on iGoogle? Because when i search regularly all seems ok… Weird though…
[Reply]
January 31st, 2009 at 5:19 pm
This happened to me also when I was searching for something. Kind of annoying that every page reports that. Hopefully it’ll be fixed or something.
[Reply]
Raju Reply:
January 31st, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Yes, its already fixed!!
[Reply]
January 31st, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I also witnessed this. Yahoo answers had lots of people experiencing the same thing. It appears to be fixed now.
[Reply]
January 31st, 2009 at 10:24 pm
ha ha.. this reminds me of another incident where yahoo displays google as malware site. I hope they have fixed it.
[Reply]
February 1st, 2009 at 6:07 am
I noticed this bug yesterday and wondering what has happened?
[Reply]
February 1st, 2009 at 8:12 pm
It’s very rare to notice this kind of bugs in Google’s products. Lets hope they wont allow for such mistakes to happen in the future.
[Reply]
February 2nd, 2009 at 7:44 pm
I wonder at the update 3. I never knew Google is working on “malwares” too, and even its a terrible news to know they have stopbadware as “malware partner”
[Reply]
February 2nd, 2009 at 7:51 pm
@Pavan,
LOL!! **OOPSS** I meant “Google’s partner in recognizing malware sites”
[Reply]
February 3rd, 2009 at 2:17 am
I pay no attention to those things. Im sure it has happened befor and will happen again. Just kinda funny how one blames the other, they deny it and then google takes the blame.
[Reply]
Raju Reply:
February 3rd, 2009 at 2:36 am
@Blogict,
At this time of high competitiveness and global recession one small mistake can snowball into a huge loss. I was reading an article which was predicting the (huge) amount of loss Google might have incurred due to this small outage. Neither a big company like Google, nor a small one like Stopbadware cud have afforded to take the blame on them as-is. Hence all the drama!
[Reply]
February 4th, 2009 at 6:12 am
I was on twitter when it happened and it was interesting to watch the spike in conversation about it.
[Reply]