Cloudeight Information Avenue - We can no longer recommend WOT

Why we cannot recommend WOT any longer
All versions of Windows

Both of us, this week, finally got fed up with the constant warnings served up by the WOT toolbar. We've written to WOT a couple of times about this issue but months down the road and the problem isn't getting any better, it's getting worse. Much worse.

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There have been times while we're visiting our own Web sites (all rated "excellent" by WOT, by-the-way) where we've gotten warnings and had our screen covered with big black warning boxes. Why? Well because Google happened to be serving a Doubleclick ad on our site and, Doubleclick is bad, bad, bad. Not really. According to WOT, Google ads are OK but Doubleclick ads are not, even though both are owned by the same company: Google. Many ad networks are listed as bad or dangerous by WOT, not because they are dangerous, or bad, but because they're advertising networks.

WOT is an example of good idea - one that sounded great in theory but isn't practical. You can't give site warnings based on a democratic vote or the input of thousands of people. That's like having a forum to decide which prescription drugs should be allowed to be sold-over-the-counter. WOT started out as a great idea, but you cannot base a safe-surfing toolbar on a democratic society of individuals, many of whom simply don't have the knowledge or expertise to make such judgments. Allowing everyone to have an opinion is a truly nice idea -- but it's not practical and it doesn't work in the real world.

Recently WOT has decided to monetize their operation by starting something called the Community of Trust. We have no objection to WOT trying to monetize their operation. No one is more aware of the fact that it costs money to be on the Internet. It costs money to own and maintain Web servers, it costs money to hire people to keep those servers up and running, it costs money for bandwidth, it costs money to keep everything going. In short, it costs money to give things away. WOT is free and we praise WOT for keeping it free. We don't think the Community of Trust is the way to do it. If a site like ours, can't afford the dues and therefore can't pay to be in The Community of Trust, does that mean we can't be trusted? If someone can pay to belong to this community, does it mean they can be trusted? The whole ideas if fraught with questions and it's going to cause WOT some problems down the road.

The Community of Trust idea reminds us of the Digital Signature and TRUSTe ideas. They were great ideas - in theory - but were subject to all kinds of abuses. One example was Hotbar. Hotbar paid for a digital signature and for its TRUSTe approved status. Hotbar was one of the worse spyware programs ever to "grace" the Web. It infected and damaged millions of computers - yet it carried its digital signature and TRUSTe logo throughout most of its existence. Folks trusted TRUSTe and some trusted digital signatures. Both the TRUSTe "approved" logo and Hotbar's digital signature were bought and paid for by Hotbar. While TRUSTe claimed that it vetted every company who applied for its logo, it didn't vet Hotbar very well - did TRUSTe vet them at all? We'll never know.

What we're getting at here is - if a company doesn't have digital signatures or a TRUSTe logo does that mean they're dangerous or bad in some way? Of course not. Most sites don't have TRUSTe approved logos and many don't have digital signatures. Many can't afford them and other simply chose not to spend money on them. If we don't pay our dues to WOT's community does that mean we can't be trusted? Does it mean that someone who pays their dues can? Of course not. But the inference will be there that someone who displays WOT's Community of Trust badge on their site is more trustworthy than one who doesn't - and this is going to open another can of worms for WOT, especially if it doesn't vet its potential members any better than TRUSTe did.

After trying to convince WOT several times that listing most advertising networks as "dangerous" or "bad", which in turn makes it appear that the sites running ads from these networks are bad, we're going to pull our recommendation of WOT's toolbar until they change their methodology. We're tired of seeing warnings on sites we know and trust - and we're tired of seeing them on our own sites as well. We've received many emails from readers questioning the value of WOT's toolbar recently too:

For example, Premium subscriber Virginia writes: "...WOT kept blocking Reimage, says it is a bad website. I am running into this a lot with WOT. I could not even repair with Reimage. Any suggestions? ..." We've thoroughly tested Reimage and we've received dozens of emails from satisfied users and many emails about the excellent support they've received from Reimage. WOT blocks Reimage. Why? Well HpHosts, at it again on his crusade on WOT, calls Reimage "Browser exploit. Engaged in the use of browser, operating system and other such exploits." Obviously, HpHosts doesn't bother testing anything or actually researching anything, he is too busy pasting negative comments about almost everything on WOT's forum. Apparently he gets a big ego boost from this - many of his minions follow. Doesn't anyone think for themselves? Does HpHosts have more to do with WOT than we know? If HpHosts actually did any research at all he'd have found many reviews of Reimage from PC Magazines' fair to middling' review to Technibbles' excellent review. HpHosts says Reimage is a browser exploit. Oh really? We highly doubt that respected tech sites or computer magazines would be testing "browser exploits" or calling them "good ideas". This is the same HpHosts who was quoted in Windows Secrets newsletter as a expert? This is the same HpHosts who runs amok on WOT's "forum" making risible comments, most of which have no basis in fact.

WOT has not improved its product, The WOT toolbar has slowly degenerated into an unreliable, annoying and disruptive tool. We reached the point where we hardly paid attention to it anymore and we've removed it from our computers. Many of their ratings - Reimage for instance - make absolutely no sense. Site ratings based on irrational input of random forum users - many of whom have no technical knowledge - simply don't work. The principle of democratic rule, e.g. allowing everyone to have a say in site ratings, just doesn't work in the real world. If WOT continues with this methodology, it's only a matter of time before more- more and more people are going to start uninstalling it. A safe surfing toolbar needs to be reliable, accurate, and dependable. Marking most advertising networks as "dangerous" or "bad", citing legitimate service site like Reimage as "browser exploits" and blocking users from potentially helpful content, are just a of the more obvious problems WOT has. There are others too. Uniblue - a software vendor - is rated as unsatisfactory, yet many of Uniblue's products have been reviewed by legitimate tech sites and computer magazines.

As of today, we're discontinuing our recommendation and endorsement of WOT. We didn't reach this decision lightly - we really thought WOT would have made improvements in the way they rate sites.. Instead WOT has gotten worse. Much worse. WOT has gotten to the point of being annoying. People who use WOT's toolbar are getting warnings they shouldn't be getting - and WOT's rating system is making good sites, like ours, appear bad. While there are a lot of problems with McAfee's Site Advisor - we have concluded that, for the most part, it does a much better job of sorting out the bad from the good, and that's exactly what a site safety toolbar should do. McAfee has problems, to be sure, especially its long delay in changing a site's ratings. Still, we feel this is more tolerable than constant, irrelevant, and increasingly erroneous warnings spawned by WOT. Making trustworthy sites or sites with legitimate content look bad simply because the site is running ads from ad networks WOT finds objectionable, isn't satisfactory - it's just plain wrong.

And we don't agree with its "Community Of Trust" network either. Charging fees to be a member, we feel, will only result in the same kinds of things that have happened with sites like TRUSTe and the many companies that now sell digital signatures. It's gotten to the point where digital signatures and "seals" of "trust" only mean that some have the money to pay for them - and little else.

If and when WOT makes changes to its rating system and improves its reliability - we'll take a look at it again. When WOT stops relying on silly, unfounded, and completely undocumented comments its forum, we'll take another look. As of now, WOT has been removed from all of our computers - we'll stick with McAfee's Site Advisor until something better comes along.

WOT got off to such a good start, it's too bad the program has gotten worse and not better. It almost seems to us that WOT now believes the more warnings it generates, the more people will think it's working better than similar programs - but in this case, more is not better, it's just plain annoying. Maybe WOT likes the niche it has found. We sure don't.

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