Was worried about being attacked through the browser, felt I needed a thing that would asses sites for viruses or whatever. So I installed WOT. Gradually became disquieted, it seemed *political*, it blocked sites antipathetic to the master race. So is this link true?: http://mywotscam.com/wotscam/

Maybe the link is a scam trying to suck people in?

I can say I use WOT and am generally happy with it.

Since you're site came up untrusted in WOT there's a couple of reasons I could see:

WOT blocked it simply because they don't like criticism as you seem to be implying.

--OR--

It IS an attack site that WOT has blocked reasonably based on ratings and it was specifically created to try to get people to override their WOT settings to overcome a bogus "conspiracy" by an the not so "sinister" WOT.

Since I am free to do whatever I want and am happy with WOT I'm more inclined to think the latter than the former so did NOT override WOT to see what the link had to say.

Sorry, I'm always a bit thick, but do you mean WOT blocked the link I gave? If so here it is: WOT, web of trust, is not blocking it on my computer.

The context in which I asked was AIDS denialist sites which WOT almost always blocks. Ditto other power unfriendly stuff such as nine eleven.

As, increasingly, the browser is a malware vector, that seems to be a very reasonable concern...

I don't think that you mean sites which are against Nazism. Or, do you?

I can't tell, but as WoT doesn't block sites, but issues a reminder that some sites are doubtful, and others less so, I will keep on using in the same way for the moment; in other words, for advice. However, thanks to this thread, I am now primed to possible bad behaviour on the part of WoT, and if enough confirmatory evidence turns up (and the text you quote is more like a mild rant, rather than evidence, per se), I'll probably stop using it.

Also, I note that what is being alleged is that WoT is now extorting from web site owners and operators, not that it, if installed, does any damage to the end-user computer. They allege that it started 'data scraping' and they leave it unclear whether this has continued (and if it has, that should be relatively easy to detect, and for which it should be relatively easy to give unambiguous evidence...and there is nothing there that could be reasonably described as evidence of what they allege, although the bit about a 'work at home' scheme could be confirmed, but that isn't really evidence of anything other than character), but they stop short of directly alleging that it still goes on.

I don't want to say that I don't care about the interests of the website operators, but I do find it a bit difficult to believe that WoT has successfully extorted from all of the non-disapproved sites, without a squeak of complaint from them, because that includes pretty much all of the web's big hitters. And surely those big hitters would have complained, wouldn't they?

Don't see that. Maybe they just keep quite to avoid embarrassment; also where would we have read their comments?

"as WoT doesn't block sites, but issues a reminder that some sites are doubtful," Nevertheless the casual surfer will move on.

"They allege that it started 'data scraping' and they leave it unclear whether this has continued (and if it has, that should be relatively easy to detect," Yes and they also put spying stuff on your computer, is alleged. Is it possible to say how this would be detected? I have uninstalled WOT and put in TrafficLight instead, but don't know what I'm doing.

If this mean the only thing that it can mean, then have another look at the rules.

Eh? By the standards of you Americans, I assume only an American could have posted that, I am slightly to the left of Lenin on steroids. Look at my signature.

Politic is obsolete somewhat, if a service would favor some sites and reject others, it is surelly for commercial reasons, no ?

What? Do people even think like this any more? Suddenly I'm ashamed to be a human being.

If I might ask, why would anyone rely on user ratings to determine whether or not a site is safe to visit? Those genius users won't even know that a site is unsafe until they are pwned, and maybe not even then. Circumvent this whole issue and implement technical solutions to the problem, like noscript for blocking unapproved Javascript, and virus scanner integration for checking material you are downloading.

By 'master race' I mean the US. I live in the UK which is a colony of this facist (http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/j...cross-us-.html) hyperpower.

That's very handy to know. Since I write, am from exclusively peasant stock, and occasionally have an original thought, I will have to guard against your purges and / or repression. Stalin was also like Lenin on drugs.

My guess is anyone who has WOT also does have other technical solutions in place. WOT is good for knowing what sites not to visit in the first place. One benefit for example is that expert sexchange (excuse me experts exchange) comes up in yellow in Google searches so it helps me from accidentally clicking on one of their unhelpful links in a list of hits.

Since the thread is about WOT I'm not sure why you singled me out. You should have just quoted the OP as he was the one that brought up WOT in the first place and ratings is the whole point of WOT.

Sorry, didn't mean to single you out. Sometimes I hit the "quote" button just out of habit. Normally I don't try to distract a thread from its original question. However, since the OP asked a question about possible bias in the ratings system, it seemed relevant to ask why one should depend on the mechanism in the first place, which is inherently based on biased user ratings.

Anyway, since I don't use WOT and don't plan on it, I think I'll unsubscribe from this thread.