Users Grow Tired of Yahoo's Search Security Tool

A few days ago, the Sunnyvale-based company Yahoo rolled out SearchScan, a special search security utility developed with the help of McAfee and supposed to filter the risky websites returned by Yahoo Search. However, it may seem like the warnings provided by SearchScan are not quite correct, as several website owners complained that they got their pages flagged as dangerous for no legitimate reason.

According to eWeek, AnyCoupons, a site that is said to be 100 percent clean, was flagged as spamming website due to what seems to be a mistake of the security company McAfee. David Lewis, CEO of 77Blue, the company that operates the site, said he contacted McAfee but was told that AnyCoupons was flagged dangerous because some spam messages were delivered to email addresses entered on the website.

"We don't have any type of form on our site that somebody could have accessed, we haven't had any security breach that we know of, [so] there's no way it could have happened," he told eWeek. "Fortunately I write at a well-read blog… Because I wrote there, McAfee decided to re-test on Monday, [and] changed us from a red alert to a yellow alert."

However, due to the complaints, Yahoo has quickly brought the matter into discussion and removed the alert from its results although it could take up to one month until the notification is automatically removed.

Yahoo's representatives defended the Sunnyvale-based company, pointing to the beta tag placed near SearchScan, which underlines the fact that sometimes, the notifications provided by the technology may not be 100 percent correct. SearchScan was rolled out on May 6 as a result of a partnership with security company McAfee, being the way the company aims to filter the malicious websites from appearing among the results provided for certain queries.

MORE RELATED ARTICLES: Yahoo Search Debuts Virus Protection Yahoo Blocks Email for BT Customers Yahoo Messenger Fans Asked to Update to 9.0 Beta, Users Say No Warning: The Number of Infected Websites Has Exploded! Yahoo! Lottery Makes People Rich Overnight