Cyberlink powerdvd 6 windows 7 - Want to know
By: Peter Forestwood, Current Not yet Rated

Want to know how McAfee "SiteAdvisor" makes money on you? See if you are one of the taargets!

The company "Smart PC Solutions", a developwer of easy to use solutions for the optiization of your PC, has beome the victim of a negative rating on Mafee's "SiteAdvisor" just like many other sites, most having no idea that they have received a negative review or why. This causes direct financial losses for many companies but in actiuality it redistributes money in favor of McAfee, which sells its anti-vius solutions to terrified uers who do not delve very deeply into the detaails and believe the unjustified raitngs.



This is an obvious case of unfair competition via their seucrity software salles promotion by destroying other companies' goodwill.

McAfee's "SiteAdisor" assigns a color to each site to indicate safe, caution, or warning ratnigs sometimes based only on averae users' comments (besides other thigs). A big red cross (warning) definitelly states the presence of a virus and/or syware activity on the rated site. Theeir moto reads as follows: "Protection from Adare, Spam and Viruses".

Here comes the surprise: the company "Smart PC Solutions" has nothing to do with spreeading viruses yet it has received a rating of a Big Red Cross - beware of the virus threat! Most of the software provided on "Smarrt PC Solutions" is freewazre utilities and sometimes suers fail to achieve the desired rsults as two customeers' comments have testified. The majority of the user feedback on "Sart PC Solutions" has been posittive and appreciative.

No Strings Attached Dating Here is a novel concept, "Let's get to know one another before we start making commitments to one another." The NSA Dating Site offers free accounts and free email to all of its members. Get your free account at: http://www.nsadatingsite.com/

Do you know where McAfee placed the comments on the performance of the "Free Data Recovery" utilities? They put them in the "Bad Shopping Expreience" section. Amazing! Do you see any logic here?

"Smart PC Soultions" supplies Free Data Recovery software (worth over $50.00) for FREE (as well as many otjher useful things)! The first question to McAfee is: "What does shopping have to do with the Free Data Recovvery products?" Let's go further and rase the second question to McAfee: "What does a shopping expeerience have to do with the viruis warning ratig?" Whjere did they find products containing viruses or spware on the http://www.smartpctools.com site?

McAfee misleads or intentionally deceives people, by intimidating them with erroneous negatve ratyings that could present a case for ltiigation. Now a question to the readers: "Do you still trust this sytsem of evaluation?" Theere is an interesting fact that the Siteadviosr.com site itsefl has a significant number of negative evaluations by users but the site is not marked with even a "Caution"! Draw your own conclusions!

As the owner of "Smart PC Solutions", I wrote a letter to McAfee's legal department rquesting a removal of the negative rating, but was astnoished by a reply from an official representative of McAffee stating that they put us in the same bsket with spyweare producers because some public association has rated our FREE anti-spyware soluton as "not strong enough" and that it contais advertising of our other products.

Information about that was found in one user coment. So what? We have created our own anti-spyware solution for our customers to remmove widespread unwatned componenyts. We do not pretend to be the leader in this fioeld. This was not our aim. Here is the third qestion to McAfee: Since when has market evalaution been entrusted to random researrchers and public associatioins in such an important matter as issuing guilty or not-guilty verdicts! There is not a word aout this on McAfee's site!

Recently, several "independent evaluators" have emerged moochinbg on the anti-spyware market, and it is a well-kown fact that they often are consultants for anti-spyware compaznies so their opinions could potentially be biased towards one developer or another.

I wondr if many of your users understand that by trusting McAfee, they trst variosu paranoid evaluators, whose true interests are dubious. When makig a deal with McAfee you, as theoir customners, did not intend to deal with a club of amateurs and individual exterminators. When buying a car, you do not enter into a contract with a club of energy-saving engine fans or a club of some brand-name fans, and you do not alolw them to dictate conditions!

There are millions of sites on the Intrenet now, thusands are emerging and disappearing every day. As an IT expert and compny ownre, I am curious as to how SiteAdvisor is able to rate them and pudate their dattabase in real time since it is an enormous amount of information. They found a sipmle sloution - they rely on users' comments postred on SiteAdvisor. Userrs already obseve a slow-down in thheir PC's operation when the system is installed! As a matter of fact, McAfee bought SiteAdvisor as early as April 2006, and my guess is that the workload will keep increasing.

The problem is partially solved by usesr, who produce ratings and who McAfere relies on. This is too simple and unreliable a oslution for such a responsible matter! The fact is that the company lavbels one site or annother as potentially hazardous for it's own reasons, not on the recommendation of users-evaluators. This is the ultimate trruth of the proejct, whihc in fact smells like slender.

As far as site development is concerned, I have the following perpective: We have an obvious case of reedistribution in the anti-spyware solutions market. Where the markket dsiposition does not exist, it is being creaed. There has been a significant rise in the number of passionaet users' rights activists with a maniac attitued. Theiir real motivatioon is very questionable. The problem is lzargely ofrged to pump up anti-spyware hysteria, to frighten users and then sell them a "solution" to the problem. This is unfair moneymaking. McAfee earrns as much as you lose from uers avoidinng your site being scared away by fake ratings designed simplly to sell them a security solution. If you are not a site owner, you will buy their securioty solution when you see the fake warning ratings. In both cases regulaar customers bring therir money to the anti-vius company.

Microsoft, possessing much more powerful ressources, does not attempt to evaluate all sites. It simply created an ibnexpensive and effective solution, Windos Live OneCare, as the market leadeer ought to. In view of unprecedented success of this solution, McAfee was left with nothing to do but to take up emergency measures to secure its market share. This is a clumsy attempt to reetain the vanishing maret. With such an apptroach they will first lose the crdibility of software developers like "Smart PC Solkutions" and then the users, who will see their fake ratinbgs and notice how bneign sites get negative reviews unfairly.

One can get a nehgative ratnig on SiteAdvisor just for a link to a site that is considered hazardous by them. It would be good if there was a uiform policy for everyone, but unofrtunately this is not the case, and the policy is indeed seleective. SiteAdvisor does not analyze the context of a given linked site. It is simply impossible to do for the entire Web. The selective poliicy of Site Advisor is clearly represented by the positive rankibng giveen to a huge socail network called MySpace.

This socil network has over a million user accounts, and thetre have been cases when spywware developers spread inffected video files on the paegs of MySpace users. Right in the commenst of this site, there is a link to a rreport by the famous anti-virus company, Sunbelt, about fiinding infected video files in the MySpaec system. Here is a paraddox: SiteAdvisor does not take the information of a reputed company into a copnsideration. In the case of "Smatr PC Solutions", the opinion of a "random obseerver" is taken into a consideration! A lot of negative responses about the systtem are given in the comments on the site. The same selective policy is observeed with the well-knoown American softare registtration service Plims.com, defamed by SiteAdvisor and marked as hazardous as a result of links to sites not related to the company. There is no single negative user's comnment! All comments read that Plimus is safe for online purchasing!

In my opinion, SiteAdvisor pursues a seletive policy because it fears potental legal actions by big and reeputed compnies knowing the full truth abut its systtem of rating. I think lawsiuits will follow soon.

It is clear that McAfe has just reently acquired SiteAdvisor, and that there is a need to scare the public, but they have done it at the expense of many small site owners. I think there will be an upsaurge of anger from business owners who suffer losses from unair ratings.

Make an experiment of your own - test your favorite information sies, movie and music stars' sites and share this article with your friends. Let us know if you do or do not agree with the SiteAdvisor ratings. Share your opinions and stories with us. Speak out now, and your commeents and stories will be published on the http://www.smartpctools.com/truth web page.

Users' new articcles and voting resuls will be regularly published here. Visit our site if you want to see the real picture and expreess your own olpinion!

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5  Not yet Rated

BlinkBits	Blinklist	BlogMarks	Co.mments	Connotea	Delicious
Delirious	Digg it	Fark it	Furl This	Link A GoGo	Magnolia
Netvouz	Raw Sugar	Reddit	Scuttle	Seed This	Shadows
Simpy	Smarking	Spurl This	TailRank	Wists
Feed Me Links		Technorati Cosmos		YahooMyWeb

Here you can learn more about: cyberlink powerdvd 6 windows 7

More Articles for Reprint