Most of my income is done in computer security market, and I have follow various tools and events to stay on the top. As with any other market, there are very interesting how the computer security is reflected in social media or how Social media is used in it. Security market got it all backwards and released semi-global unlike button for its own market in terms of MyWOT.

I have reviewed MyWOT positively in the past, and the points are still valid. However, it is time to talk about several downsides of it (and why I see no real use for it in the future).

First, it works as global unlike button in security market. Lots of people know about it in this area and use it to manipulate listings. Experts do not rate good sites in this area – there are too many, and no one cares if they are not their own. For example, one negative review of one Rogue cleaner in my blog resulted at negative review in MyWOT of my site by him (with several accounts). I know pretty much, that some of other ratings are voted by people advertising similar or same products:)

Second, the toolbar itself is made in the way that suggest auto-confirming votes. It blocks all sites with negative ratings, and many of the negative ratings are reconfirmed by users which do not see the site itself. I had a looong discussion with MyWOT platinum member to remove his comment (and rating), which was made WITHOUT checking website. The mailing forth and back lasted couple days, and I the last mail I got was that he removed the comment and will check the website once he has time.

Third, the sources of auto-rating. MyWOT uses 3 sources (maybe more) to confirm that site is valid : hphosts, delicious and digg. First one is negative, other ones have no bigger impact. All of them have no real basis. Everyone can submit to digg and delicious. Listing in hphosts is not purely black or white either: some of listings are irrelevant (“marketing strategies”) , some are out of control ( IPs history) , some are valid (distribution of malicious software). However, I haven’t seen users evaluating these properly. Everyone would just vote all bards the same.

4th, the site banner issue. I do not think it is ok, but whatever. If people would like to pay for displaying how crowd things the site is secure, then it is great for mywot. All banners based on real testing are much more useful.

5th. Malware, response time and such. MyWOT will not rate sites at once. Thus malware sites will not be rated as dangerous on first vote. Next, lots of malware is spread through sites with good reputation. Like facebook. Thus it will not make web any safer.

To summarize, to protect from parasites I would advice to use Site Advisor Toolbar and not Mywot. However, MyWOT could become much better if adding some changes. For example, incorporating Site Advisors ratings (including possitive and negative sides), checking spent time on the site on rating, checking overall distribution of ratings, etc.

Somewhat funny note is that my site was rated badly by Site Advisor as well, as I have provided a link to Malwarebytes executable or download page (can’t remember). Later on I get my WOT ratings because I am one of the few people that does not advertise Malwarebytes as “the best single protection” or smth.

Categories: Security

Giedrius Majauskas

I am a internet company owner and project manager living at Lithuania. I am interested in computer security, health and technology topics.

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