Monday, May 12, 2008

A new annoying Google service


There are a few things in life where I would prefer not to be disturbed. In the past that was while reading a newspaper, having good sex is still on this list and mastering the world through my rss-reader has become one of them. While disturbances during these activities are always around the corner, I get really pissed off when a professional service makes it their business to disturb me.
I got on my rss-radar screen the name of an old friend Stefan Messmann. In the 1980s he brokered one of the first joint ventures between Volkswagen and the Shanghai Automotive Industry (SAIC); later he was also the manager of the company for the German site. I had not seen him for a long time, so this was an ideal way to get updated.
But when I wanted to click on to the Managingthedragon.com, a warning (see picture) appeared 'Reported Attack Site": the stopbadware.org had decided, with the compliments of Google, to block my successful road to more knowledge.
StopBadware is a partnership between top academic institutions, technology industry leaders, and volunteers committed to protecting internet users from threats to their privacy and security caused by bad software. Learn more about us here.
I'm paying Norton to protect my computer and as far as I can see they do a pretty decent job. I did never ask Google nor StopBadware to interfere with my quest for knowledge: there are in China enough others who try to do that.
Of course, the site I was forced to called upon me to get involved. It lacked only one button, to cancel this unwanted service.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you think Norton will protect you from malicious websites, you are probably already infected.