The trouble with websites attempting to help users with their “browsing” issues is that sometimes they don’t get the whole picture. Take this relatively new site Bux.to. They offer and interesting albeit strange service that enables users to earn $0.01 per page that they look at for at least 30 seconds. Using advertising dollars (and more), they can help these website viewers earn an “unlimited” amount of money. Honestly I don’t know that I’d spend my time doing it but that’s not what this post is about.
I was reading through their FAQ page and came across an interesting question. It said, “I can’t see any ads!“ A simple enough problem that I’m sure many of us would complain about to any website (that is if we didn’t actually want to see the website content). But their answer is what scares me, “If you see no ad links on the “Surf Ads” page but you DO see stats on the right hand side then you need to disable all antivirus and antispyware/adware programs.“ Now, I don’t know about anyone else but I would be weary of any website that tells its users to disable ALL antivirus and antispyware/adware programs.
At my company we make sure that these programs have to be running on the users machine at all times but I’m sure that this isn’t the case for many organizations or home users. I ask the security industry, what can we do to protect users from following these types of directions? We can educate users on good and bad websites to visit and how to protect themselves from not opening email from people they don’t know but how do we go about telling users not to trust some of the information on legitimate websites that they use each and every day. This is not the first time I’ve read or heard something like this on the web it’s just the first time I’m writing about it. Thoughts anyone? Or is this just another example of Darwin’s Law?
