WOT Wiki - User contributions [en]

WOT

2017-01-30T14:32:41Z

MyWOT Team: /* Privacy */

Web of Trust (WOT) is a community-based safe surfing tool that uses an intuitive traffic-light style rating system to help Internet users stay safe as they search, browse, and shop online. The WOT security add-on provides safety ratings to search results when using Google, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, and other popular sites, helping people protect their computers and personal information. Web site ratings are continuously updated by millions of members of the WOT community and from numerous trusted sources, such as phishing site listings. The free Internet security add-on works with Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers and can be downloaded at http://www.mywot.com.

== Company History ==
Based in Helsinki, Finland, WOT Services Ltd. (formally known as Against Intuition, Inc.) was founded in 2006 by two graduate students: [http://www.mywot.com/en/user/5 Timo Ala-Kleemola] and [http://www.mywot.com/en/user/4 Sami Tolvanen]. WOT Services focuses on developing and providing software and services for the WOT community and on promoting the community's goals. In February, 2009, Michael "Monty" Widenius, founder of MySQL and a guru for the global open source movement invested in WOT. The Finnish Industry Investment Ltd. is an existing shareholder.

== How WOT works ==
WOT allows users to add their input on the trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and/or child safety of a website based on their experience with the site and/or services they offer. The rating scale ranges from poor to excellent and is algorithmic. WOT calculates the reputation of a website through a combination of user ratings and data from trusted sources such as [http://hosts-file.net hpHosts] [http://www.legitscript.com Legit Script] [http://www.pandasecurity.com Panda Security], [https://www.phishtank.com PhishTank], and [http://www.truste.com TRUSTe].

== Browser integration ==
WOT is available as an add-on for Internet Explorer, [[Firefox|Mozilla Firefox]] and as a bookmarklet for [[WOT for Opera | Opera]], [[Chrome | Google Chrome]], [[Safari]], and any other browser supporting JavaScript and bookmarks/favorites. After downloading the add-on to the user's browser, the WOT logo appears in the web browser's navigation toolbar. When the user navigates to a website, the color of the logo will change color based on a traffic light system (Green, Light Green, Yellow, Light Red or Red); depending on the reputation of a website determined by its users.

'''Availability'''
The add-on works with [[Firefox]] on all platforms and Internet Explorer on Windows. The user interface comes in 14 languages and a colorblind accessible version. With the Apple Safari Browser running on iOS5 on devices such as the Apple [[iPad]] the WOT bookmarklet can be used to display WOT ratings for a given site in a pop-up window.

== Rating Components ==
WOT uses two categories to determine what they consider to be the reputation of a website.

'''Trustworthiness''' - The "poor" rating indicates Internet scams like lottery or identity theft risks, credit card fraud, phishing, spyware, adware, malware or computer viruses. The site may obtain a rating of "unsatisfactory" if it contains unnecessary advertisements, excessive pop-ups, or content that makes the browser crash.(Trust may also refer to the believability of the content.)
'''Child safety''' - Indicates whether the site contains age-inappropriate material of a sexual, hateful, or violent nature, or content that encourages dangerous or illegal activities.

'''Rating symbols'''
WOT rating icons This content has an uncertain copyright status and is pending deletion. You can comment on its removal.

After using a popular search engine like Google, a tiny icon appears beside the link—green for go, yellow for proceed with caution and red for stop. WOT warns about sites that can damage files on your computer, or cause other trouble. WOT ratings are shown on Google, Yahoo!, Gmail, Wikipedia, Digg, del.icio.us, AOL, MSN and other popular sites.
Website security scorecard
WOT Website Reputation Scorecard

The Website Security Scorecard was introduced with WOT version 3. The scorecard shows data on popularity, a link to the WHOIS domain entry, detailed rating information with graphics, and a section for user comments and references. The references come from negative sources such as phishing, malware, and spam blacklists or positive sources like del.icio.us, Digg, or Wikipedia.

== Rating quality ==
Ratings in WOT measure the overall trust users have in a website in addition to its safety. Therefore, a website that might technically be safe to visit can still have a bad rating if large enough portion of the community has indicated lack of trust for the site.

Ultimately, the accuracy of the resulting ratings depends on the accuracy of the submitted opinions. User participation might also lead to biased ratings, especially if only a few users have rated a website. Concerns have been raised that some WOT users may not be knowledgeable enough about the personal data management of a website to provide accurate ratings concerning privacy, for example, which could lead to good sites being rated bad and vice-versa. These issues have, in part, been mitigated by using Bayesian-based statistical analysis on the ratings and automatically giving the ratings of trusted users a greater influence.

== Privacy ==
WOT has a strict [https://www.mywot.com/en/privacy/privacy_policy privacy policy]. As noted in the website, "WOT goes to great lengths, and invests substantial resources, to avoid disclosing Personal Information. This includes the use of various state-of-the art anonymization, data cleaning and aggregation techniques to identify and remove Personal Information from information we collect with the goal of storing only Non-Personal Information."

== Recognition ==
'''PC Magazine''' The WOT add-on is reviewed by Neil Rubenking
'''Softpedia''' The WOT add-on is reviewed by Ionut Ilascu, Editor, Software Reviews
'''BNET''' WOT is reviewed in BNET's Business Hacks by Rick Broida
'''cnet.com''' WOT for Internet Explorer 20090414 received a 5 star rating based on a June 10, 2009 review by CNET staff.
'''PC Welt''' The WOT add-on is recommended German PC Welt(a PC World publication)
'''Gizmo''' Top Pick for Best Freeware Internet Security Check WOT won the top pick award at Gizmo's Best Freeware Internet Security Check
'''Recommended at Firefox Add-ons''' WOT is on the recommended add-ons rotation since July 2008 at Mozilla's Firefox Add-ons website.

FAQ

2017-01-30T14:28:46Z

MyWOT Team: /* Malicious rumors */

This is a collection of answers not found in [http://www.mywot.com/faq the official FAQ].

== Common misconceptions ==

=== Users aren't qualified to rate sites ===

We realize the average web user isn't a security professional and we don't expect them to go out and investigate random websites for safety. We have an active group of experienced users who review sites for technical safety and help the average user avoid security threats. We only expect users to share their experiences with the websites they already know, because they are uniquely qualified to do that. Being able to learn from other people's experiences is the whole reason for this service.

=== Someone has to fall victim first before others can be warned ===

Someone obviously has to discover threats before they can warn others, but it doesn't mean this someone has to fall victim or even be a WOT user. We collect information from a number of blacklists and other sources to warn users of emerging threats before they have to experience them personally.

=== Reputations are easy to manipulate ===

When someone first hears about the concept behind WOT, their first objection is that someone could easily spam the system with tons of ratings and rate down their competitors or otherwise manipulate reputations, but that's not true. We designed the reputation system to be as fair as possible and very resistant to manipulation.

==== Ratings aren't equally reliable ====

Usually in reputation systems each rating is weighted equally and reputations are computed as the average of all ratings, which makes them extremely vulnerable to automated attacks. Therefore, we decided early on to value ratings by their merit and use some of the principles of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference Bayesian inference] for combining the ratings into reputations. Without going into details, the system analyzes each user's rating behavior from several aspects in order to determine their reliability. When you start using WOT, your ratings have little weight, but if you keep rating sites consistently, your ratings will be considered more reliable over time. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy meritocratic] nature of the system makes it far more difficult for spammers to abuse, because bots will have a hard time simulating human behavior over a long period of time.

Note: [[Rating reliability|User reliability]] is determined using statistical modeling and doesn't depend on the number of ratings or whether you agree with other users. Specifically, it's not related to your activity score or user level, which simply tell you how active you've been.

==== Unusual behavior is automatically detected ====

In addition to weighting ratings differently based on statistical analysis of user's rating behavior, we also monitor for unusual rating activity. The system is capable of ignoring spammers without human intervention and almost every type of unusual rating behavior can be detected. We investigate all suspicious activity and ratings from someone abusing the service will be silently ignored.

==== But I don't agree with a reputation! ====

The site's reputation tells you how much other users trust the website. If you disagree with a reputation, it's most likely not because the reputation is being manipulated or there's a conspiracy against the site, but because other people simply don't agree with you. Their experiences may be different from yours, it happens sometimes. You may want to start a new topic on [http://www.mywot.com/forum the forum] to discuss the site's reputation or if you suspect unusual activity, [http://www.mywot.com/support/feedback/problem report it].

== Ratings vs. comments ==

Ratings are often confused with comments, probably because comments are so prominently visible on the scorecard. Users can rate websites on the add-on or on each website's scorecard in <strike>four</strike> two rating components. Ratings are private, which means they are not shown to other users. Reputations are computed only from ratings.

If users want to share additional details about their experiences, they can also write comments to scorecards. Comments are purely informational and have no effect on the reputation. Comments can be voted up or down depending on whether others agree with them. Comment votes only determine the default order of comments on the scorecard, they won't affect the site's reputation. If a site's reputation rating is determined to be controversial, comment voting is disabled to prevent one side from suppressing opposing views by voting them down.

=== Why can't I see how others have rated a site? ===

It's always been WOT's policy to keep user ratings private and have [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot a secret ballot]. If users want to reveal their opinion of a website to others, they have an option to post a comment. If all ratings were public, users might be reluctant to rate certain sites, because it would reveal to everyone they have actually visited them. Not to mention that users with an opposite agenda might start intimidating others to change their ratings. This all would lead to less ratings, which leads to less reliable reputations; something nobody wants.

=== Why don't you show the number of ratings? ===

Unlike it might first seem, the number of ratings won't tell you the reliability of a reputation, and showing it could in fact be misleading to users. It would be trivial for a spammer to rate a site multiple times and thereby make the reputation appear to be reliable, for example. This is why WOT shows you the confidence indicator instead (the small human figures next to each rating symbol). The confidence value tells you how reliable the rating system considers the reputation and it's based not only on the quantity of ratings, but also the estimated reliability of the users who rated the site.

=== Why don't comments always match the reputation? ===

A site's reputation is computed from ratings, not comments. Leaving a comment is completely optional and since users who disagree with the reputation or otherwise feel strongly about the site are more likely to also write a comment, it's not uncommon for comments to appear to contradict with the reputation.

== Malicious rumors ==

It's unfortunate, but the more popular WOT becomes and the more successful it is at preventing people from falling for scams, the more people start attacking us. Often scammers whose business model WOT is hurting or other disgruntled website owners spread malicious rumors about the service in an attempt to discredit it and to discourage people from benefiting from the reputations. This section addresses some of the most common rumors.

=== Is WOT a scam? Is it a legitimate service? ===

People spreading this rumor, whether out of malice or ignorance, rarely even try to explain what kind of a scam WOT is purported to be. This is because WOT is perfectly legitimate, has been around for over half a decade, and has credible backers. The legality of the WOT service has been [http://www.mywot.com/press/safe-surfing-tool-web-of-trust-wins-in-court tested in court] and there's nothing illegal or criminal about the company or the service.

WOT was founded in 2006, and has always operated in the public eye. WOT has been regularly featured or recommended by Mozilla, Google, Apple and Opera.

=== Is the add-on spyware or adware? ===

No. WOT is not spyware or adware and does its best to respect your privacy, as outlined in the [https://www.mywot.com/en/privacy/privacy_policy privacy policy]. To provide its basic function, analyze patterns, and proactively protect users, the WOT add-on must request the URL for each website you visit. It also needs to keep track of users’ site ratings, which it does by creating automatically generated identifiers. This collection of limited data is what leads to these unfortunate rumors. At WOT, we go to great lengths and invests substantial resources to anonymize data and avoid disclosing personal information, all as set forth in our [https://www.mywot.com/en/privacy/privacy_policy privacy policy].

=== Does WOT sell reputations or blackmail site owners? ===

After [http://www.mywot.com/trustseal the WOT trust seal] was introduced, every now and then rumors resurface claiming reputations can be bought, because WOT now sells something to site owners. That couldn't be further away from the truth. Only websites that have already earned a good reputation from user ratings are eligible for a trust seal, and should the website's reputation change to poor in future, they will lose the trust seal automatically. Sending WOT money does not affect a website's reputation, it's still determined from user ratings.

Another more recent variation of this is a claim that WOT is sending website owners email saying they need to pay, usually thousands of dollars, to improve their reputation. If someone has received an email saying this, it was not from WOT. You cannot pay to improve your reputation. If you are a site owner and someone is blackmailing you, contact the police. You can also post the evidence to the WOT forum and we will help you catch those who are responsible.

Update: Since October 2013, WOT trust seals and badges have been discontinued and it's no longer possible to buy them.

=== Are WOT considering people who rate a lot of websites as spammers? ===

Some of our most active users volunteer their time researching scams or security issues on the web. As a result, they may end up rating even hundreds of sites per day. Occasionally, we hear complaints that these people are spammers, bots, or even paid to rate websites for whatever nefarious purpose. Sometimes the argument goes that it's simply not possible for a person to rate that many sites, which means they must be doing something evil. Of course, none of that is true.

Probably thousands of websites are created every day for various scams, but luckily, there are also people who spend their time warning others. They are able to do this because we provide them access to tools that allow them to rate and leave comments for more than one website at a time. This way, when they uncover a hundred new websites recently set up for scamming people, they are able to rate all of them.

Note that unlike [[#Ratings vs. comments|normal ratings]], which are private, ratings left using the mass rating tool are more transparent, because the user is always forced to leave a comment explaining the rating. The comment also has a special icon on the top right corner that helps you distinguish it from normal comments. Despite these differences, it's important to note that ratings left using the mass rating tool are not considered [[#Ratings aren't equally reliable|any more reliable]] than normal ratings, and have no special meaning when the reputation is computed.

=== Platinum level users decide reputations? ===

WOT assigns each user a level based on how active they have been. When someone starts using WOT, they are at the Rookie level. Once they have rated and commented enough websites, they finally reach the Platinum level. The user levels only tell you how active someone has been, they have no other meaning. Unfortunately, some people intentionally misinterpret user levels, and claim that nobody else's opinion matters anymore once a Platinum level user has left a comment for site. That's simply not true.

Since WOT is a meritocracy, the weight of user ratings vary depending on how reliable the rating system considers the user. This is completely different from user levels, and how active someone has been doesn't affect their rating reliability. Rating reliability is determined fully automatically based on analysis of the user's rating behavior. The only purpose for this is to make the system more resistant to manipulation and spamming. If someone tries to abuse the rating system, their ratings are accepted normally, but have such a low weight that they cannot do any harm.

When a new user starts using WOT, their ratings have little weight at first, but if they continue rating sites, the ratings will be considered more reliable after a while. Platinum level users have no advantage over others in this; their rating reliability varies just like it does with others. Not all Platinum level users are considered equally reliable either. In fact, when it comes to rating reliability, most of the users the system considers highly reliable are in lower user levels, which means they do not rate as many sites.

=== Did Facebook stop using WOT? ===

In May 2011, [http://www.mywot.com/press/facebook-protects-users-from-untrustworthy-websites-with-web-of-trust-reputation-ratings Facebook and WOT announced] that Facebook will start checking the WOT reputation of links posted to their service and will show an intermediate warning page when a user tries to follow a link to a poorly rated site. Recently, certain groups have started spreading rumors that Facebook has stopped using WOT in an attempt to discredit our service. This isn't true, and there have been no changes in our partnership with Facebook since the initial announcement regarding URL checking.

However, it should be noted that Facebook does use a higher warning threshold than the WOT add-on, which means the warning is shown only for sites that have a very poor reputation with a sufficiently high confidence level. In other words, Facebook doesn't warn about all poorly rated sites. Also, while WOT was the first link checking service Facebook integrated to their website, they have added several others since then, including Websense and SURBL, for example. These services have not replaced WOT, and using multiple link checking services was in Facebook's original plans.

Another variation of this rumor includes a claim that WOT was caught buying Facebook likes and includes a fake quote from Facebook. This is also misinformation. WOT has never bought Facebook likes and doesn't see any reason to do so. In fact, selling Facebook likes is commonly seen as highly unethical and websites doing so usually have a poor reputation at WOT. Most likely this malicious rumor was started by an owner of such a service.

In November 2012, Facebook also [http://www.mywot.com/press/web-of-trust-becomes-first-crowd-sourced-security-solution-invited-into-facebook-s-av-marketplace added the WOT add-on to their AV Marketplace]. “We have been proud partners with Web of Trust for the past year and a half, and are excited to announce a new stage of that partnership to keep our users and their data safe. Not only will Facebook users continue to benefit from WOT's reputation warnings when clicking potentially malicious links but also will be able to download their browser add-on for protection no matter where they are on the web” said Joe Sullivan, Chief Security Officer of Facebook.

Intellectual Property Rights

2016-07-10T07:15:02Z

MyWOT Team:

* [http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/ The Berne Convention]
* [http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law UK Copyright Law]
* [http://www.ipo.gov.uk/p-legislation UK Patent Law]
* [http://www.prsformusic.com/creators/joiningus/how_it_works/infringementsanddisputes/Pages/infringements.aspx Performing Rights Society (UK)]
* [http://www.iacc.org/ International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition]
* [http://www.copyright.gov/ US Copyright Office]
* [http://www.iprcenter.gov/ US National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center]
*: [http://www.iprcenter.gov/referral/ report Intellectual Property Rights infringements]
* [http://www.sipo.gov.cn/ State Intellectual Property Office (China)]
* [http://www.copyright.ru/ Copyrights in Russia]
* [http://www.plagiarism.org/ Plagiarism explained]
* (Link needed) List of Music Industry Royalty Collection Societies around the world

How To Check For Blacklisting

2016-06-03T13:20:30Z

MyWOT Team:

== How to check for blacklisting ==

On this site you will find various online urls where you can check if a site is blacklisted. Some of them collect spammers, scammers, phishers, infected sites...

===UrlVoid===
Simply open http://www.urlvoid.com/ in your browser and enter the domain of the website you want to check. For example enter "mywot.com".

Urlvoid will tell you a lot of things. First, the date when the report was updated last. If the report is rather old, do not put too much confidence in it. It might still be correct, but it might also be outdated.

The most important values are Detections and Status. Detection shows, how many of the collected blacklist reports mention the site. The status depends on this report. If the status is green, there are no detections, the site is not blacklisted on any of those services.

Of course, if the site is rated red in WoT, it will detect as suspicious. Since the purpose of this check is to rate it in WoT, please ignore this specific rating.

If the site is detected somewhere, you can click on the tiny magnifying lens near the service name. It will bring you directly to the service where you can check why it is listed and for what exactly. Basically, to be on such a list is bad and you should tread carefully when visiting the site for further checks.

Now let's take a step back and look at the IP address value of the site with the SCAN link nearby. An IP address is the numerical address of the website you entered.
Click the SCAN button. This link will take you to IPVoid.

===IPVoid===

If there are already data, they will be shown at once. If not, you will be asked to confirm a scan for data. Do not enter anything in the edit box, just check Yes and click Submit. You will get a similar list as before based on the IP address of the website. You may think of the difference as between asking: "Is Mr. XY an offender" and "Is anyone in the house Mr. XY lives an offender?". Sometimes the offense cannot be tied to the specific site, just to the vicinity. While this analogy is not perfectly accurate, it should give you an idea. The site may or may not be an offender, but some site with that IP address is.

===Malwareurl===

Malwareurl lists sites that contain malware. So if a site is detected here, you should be extra careful.

To check Malwareurl is rather simple. Go to http://www.malwareurl.com/listing-urls.php and enter the hostname or IP of the service you want to check. Enter the captcha and click "Check Web Site". If the site is listed, it will be shown together with a link to a detailed security report. The report will tell you exactly what part of the site was detected as malicious.