Google has removed paid links that advertised seemingly legitimate Web sites but actually tried to install nefarious programs on PCs.
The links were displayed as “sponsored links” after visitors entered specific queries into Google’s search service. Clicking the links would ultimately go to a legitimate site, but by way of another site that attempted a “drive-by installation” of password-stealing software. Miscreants placed the links using Google’s AdWords service for advertisers.
“Google identified and canceled AdWords accounts displaying ads that re-directed users to malicious sites,” a company representative wrote on a corporate blog on Thursday.
The malicious links appeared after people searched for terms related to the Better Business Bureau and cars, according to Exploit Prevention Labs, a security company. All the paid-for links masqueraded as legitimate sites and redirected Google users to the actual sites after sending them to smarttrack.org, which served up the malicious code, Exploit Prevention Labs said.
“We detected about 20 different search strings that resulted in links to smarttrack.org,” said Roger Thompson of Exploit Prevention Labs. “There were multiple ads linking to a single site, a high level of planning, and cunning by the bad guys.”
Web threats are on the rise. Security firm Trend Micro predicts that by next year, Internet users can expect more cyberattacks to originate from the Web than via e-mail. The threat hasn’t gone unnoticed by the security industry. Tools such as Google’s Toolbar for Firefox or Google Desktop, Exploit Prevention Labs’ LinkScanner and McAfee’s SiteAdvisor can offer protection by blocking known bad sites or rating search results.
Google is looking at its AdWords practices to prevent similar incidents in the future, the company said. “This is an issue we’ve taken very seriously and will continue to monitor,” it said. “We are also evaluating our systems to ensure that the appropriate measures are in place to block future attempts.”
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There was a lot of controversy recently when Wikipedia announced that all outbound links from the online encyclopedia would include the nofollow tag. The nofollow tag on a link is said to prevent link spamming since some search engines (Google among them) do not count links containing the tag towards any weighing of the destination page. What this means is that a link from Wikipedia will no longer boost the position of a page in search results, the intention being that this will deter spammers from sneaking links onto Wikipedia.
In Febuary of 2005 the Wikipedia community voted in favor (by a vote of 61% to 39%) of removing the nofollow tags, but this outcome was overruled by Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, earlier this year. It seems that while the nofollow tag is added to the standard outbound links, it isn’t applied to inter-wiki links, including links to Wikia, Wikipedia’s for-profit spin off. For example, on the Wikipedia page for Wikia there are a number of links to Wikia pages which do not contain the nofollow tag.
The result: wikis included on the white list are granted outbound links that do not contain the “nofollow” tag. These sites benefit directly by receiving higher search engine placements, which is equivalent to additional traffic and authority. Many direct competitors to Wikia, such as Wetpaint, are not included in the white list as of today.
The links to Wikia that don’t have the nofollow tag are created using a special Wikipedia tag wikiasite:. The tag for linking to Wikia pages isn’t mentioned in the help pages for Wikipedia, but there are many references to it throughout Wikipedia and the talk pages on various topics. It is a special type of link known as an Interwiki link, which means that you can use special shortcut tags when linking to other Wiki’s (such as Wikia). The question is, why wouldn’t the nofollow policy apply to inter-wiki links? Specifically since there is an apparent conflict of interest with Wikia, something that you would think that the Wikia team would want to avoid.
The Wikipedia decision to include nofollow tags was not popular and many have pointed out that nofollow is not as effective in preventing link spam as was expected. Wikipedia now has very few outbound links that are honored by search engines, and all of these links are either to other Wikipedia properties, or other wikis via the inter-wiki special links. Why the nofollow policy isn’t applied to links to external wikis we don’t know yet.
To provide an even playing field, Wikipedia should include the nofollow tag for links to all other wikis using the Wikimedia platform.
TechCrunch emailed Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Wikia CEO Gil Penchina for comment but have not heard back yet.
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The next user to download a song from a peer-to-peer file-sharing service like LimeWire could be in for a surprise. Not a recording industry lawsuit, but a pop-up asking him to look at an ad–either text or video–in return for a free and legal copy of the music.
For that, the record labels, which have been trying to monetize illegally traded music for years, can thank a three-year-old company called Intent MediaWorks. Intent has figured out how to embed pop-ups in music and video files unobtrusively, and the company claims that 60 percent of users are willing to endure the resulting pop-up ads.
“Consumers don’t want to rip people off,” says Les Ottolenghi, president and co-founder of Atlanta-based Intent. “They just want to get music as easily as possible.”
Intent is seeding the peer-to-peer networks at a rapid clip. In February its digital media files were downloaded 1.7 million times. By December it expects that number to grow to at least 10 million.
At a cost to the advertiser of $5.80 per 1,000 ad views for text and $30 or more for video, that’s a healthy revenue stream. Intent shares the money with artists and their labels, which can also choose to serve up their own promotions within the pop-ups.
Intent’s customers already include Nettwerk Music Group, which publishes Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, and Sarah McLachlan, and Chuck D’s Slamjamz Records; the company also expects to sign at least one of the Big Four music firms by mid-2007. Advertisers thus far have included Audi and Coca-Cola (Charts, Fortune 500).
Since Intent follows users no matter what the latest popular file-sharing service is–FrostWire and Shareaza, anyone?–advertisers will pay to reach the eyeballs.
The peer-to-peer audience is made up of young, affluent, and technically savvy consumers, notes Mitchell Reichgut, a principal at ad firm Jun Group. “That’s the kind of person you want to reach,” he says. “If you do something on peer-to-peer and do it well, it’s marketing on steroids.”
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