Google and Facebook have been in the news this year for suppressing certain content that suggests the entities have biases in place. Well, this isn’t a new concept at all – and it certainly doesn’t mean these companies have done anything wrong.
At the end of the day, online platforms are tasked with the daunting task of leveraging technology to ensure users get the best experience using their product(s). That’s tough to achieve all across the board.
Social engineering has been talked about so much this year that I even referenced some amazing articles I’ve come across recently. It’s not going to stop….
…but as for malicious persuasion, these same companies are stepping up and thwarting the rulebreakers.
Yesterday, on the Google blog, the company announced that they will now display an interstitial warning to users that are about to access a website that have been flagged for deceiving users in some way.
Surprisingly, the criteria for earning these flags is rather obtuse. If your site is flagged, you will undoubtedly be notified via Google Webmaster Tools. However, the reasons may not be cited.
To serve as examples, I’ve pasted some of the dangerous examples of flagged social engineering. If your website is doing any of these things, I’d expect to see some notifications from Google soon.
The Google blog post can be found here.