Google blocks Twitpic over alleged malware

I posted this in another related submission-<p>We're trying to sort it out but there isn't really any information provided by Google/Chrome to go on. The best "details" they have show that Twitpic has 0 pages with Malware.<p>Crazy how some automated process at Google can kill an entire site just like that.

Looks like yet another "malvertising" situation.<p>The Google Safebrowsing report [1] appears fairly ambiguous though:<p>"Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer (...)"<p>"Of the 12029 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 0 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2012-12-30, and <i>suspicious content was never found</i> on this site within the past 90 days."<p>[1] <a href="http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http%3A%2F%2Ftwitpic.com%2F&#38;client=googlechrome&#38;hl=en-US" rel="nofollow">http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnost...</a>

I'm not sure this qualifies as news as this same thing has happened to other large sites from time to time.<p>What likely happened is that one of the 3rd party advertisers on Twitpic delivered ads that contain something classified as malware thus resulting in the entire Twitpic site getting blacklisted.

It's not googles job to police the Internet. I, and many others, have been subjected to googles safe browsing malware flag without due cause. This is unacceptable and google overstepping its position.<p>I am beginning to hope that someone takes google to task and reigns in thier power over the Internet community. No company should have the ability to practically shut down websites at will.

They blocked Twicsy today too, for using a pretty reputable ad network. It seems anti-competitive to me. Google knows it is an ad network that is causing the problems, they even pointed me to the supposedly malicious script. If they know that, they can just disable the ad network and send me a notice on Google Webmaster tools. They did neither, instead they block Twicsy for everyone and display a nasty message. It is ridiculous.

Interestingly, if you try to load any page with Twitpic content embedded you get the same warning.<p>Try to load the founder's page on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/noaheverett" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/noaheverett</a><p>"Danger: Malware Ahead! Google Chrome has blocked access to this page on twitter.com. Content from twitpic.com, a known malware distributor, has been inserted into this web page."

I wonder if Google's malware warnings have ever been reviewed by lawyers. Because this entire feature smells like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

I cannot even load tweetdeck at the moment as it seems to preload the images on the links thus showing the big red screen

This is showing up in Firefox as well, since it uses "Google Safe Browsing" for information about suspicious sites.

even Firefox now warns its users <a href="http://browserfame.com/1049/chrome-twitpic-malware-warning" rel="nofollow">http://browserfame.com/1049/chrome-twitpic-malware-warning</a>

I'm happy to use a third party client to browse twitter...