Search Sites Tied to Viruses, Spyware
McAfee's SiteAdvisor is set to release new research that indicates spyware, viruses, and other online threats are linked to search sites. Roughly 5 percent of the search results on average were risky sites on the first five results pages, which included about 3 percent of the regular Web-search results and 9 percent of the paid advertisements, according to SiteAdvisor. The research also found that about 2 percent of the 3.3 million Web sites rated in its database, which make up 95 percent of all Web traffic, put consumers at risk. The results of the study question whether search companies should have a better policy for enforcing their search results and advertisements. "The bad guys go where the users are, and the users are in search," says Chris Dixon at McAfee. SiteAdvisor found that a consumer will click on an unsafe site from a search engine once every 15 days. Many companies such as Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft try to protect users by banning ads that promote spyware, viruses, and malicious software.
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