FINAL UPDATE (I hope): Google seems to be fixed. In any case, this is a good reminder as to why we should not want one search engine to so dominate that it crushes all the competition.
It appears that the problem was caused by an outage at StopBadware.org. I've noticed these security warnings about sites before but this incident caused me to read more about this arrangement between Google and StopBadware.org and I don't like the sounds of it.
Quoting a poster at this site:
[If StopBadware] receive[s] an anonymous complaint about a web site, they will put you on a "bad" list which is then supplied to Google, who is also one of their financial investors. Google immediately blocks all search results to that web site with that horrific, and in my view libelous, warning. All of this is done with no investigation into the validity of the complaint. So overnight, at the whim of anybody who wants to file a complaint, an entire business can be shut down.
If you ask me, Google is definitely getting too big for its own britches.
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Right now, on more than one browser (and from more than one of my computers), Google is tagging EVERY SITE that comes up in any of my search results with the following:
This site may harm your computer.
Even if I google the term "google," the results show that google.com "may harm your computer."
What's up with that? I know that depending on where you are in the world, google search results will vary slightly so this might not be affecting everyone, still it's pretty bizarre.
It hasn't mattered which browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari even Chrome) or which computer I've tried.
Anybody else care to give it a try?
Update: Well obviously this is a widespread problem. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for this to hit the mainstream news.
Update: Seems to be fixed now.