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View Full Version : WOT Web of Trust Dumps REALSCAM? Why??



klagoosh
12-09-2012, 07:05 PM
Hey, has anybody been to this site?

Realscam had a pretty good rating started there, then it disappeared except for the top bar, and
now it's not rated at all!

Has anybody else noticed this?

I did a little checking and noticed several high ranking WOT members (five I've found so far) have spammed their way to the top. They used a blacklist site to skim the URLs and then posted the same comment for every one of them. Two of them who are platinum members are advertising Canadian Pharmaceuticals, which is illegal. (The Canadian government is cracking down on them, right now.)

These websites that are there to protect the public are a very welcome addition to the online world, but when the ones who are supposed to protect the public trust are allowing these kinds of practices, who do you trust?

Tell me I'm wrong...

Dave

Lil Ol' Radical Me
12-10-2012, 06:01 AM
Link please?

path2prosperity
12-10-2012, 07:33 AM
Main link for Web of Trust. (http://www.mywot.com)

Note that Adlandpro has a poor reputation. See most of the regular Scamland shills doing their best to immprove the rating.

Scamland reputation (http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/adlandpro.com)

scratchycat
12-10-2012, 10:44 AM
WOT uses color-coded symbols to show the reputation of a site: Green indicates that the site is trusted by the community, yellow warns you to be cautious and red indicates potential danger. A gray symbol with a question mark means that there are not enough ratings to calculate. See the complete list of WOT icons.

Safe Browsing Tool | WOT (Web of Trust) (http://www.mywot.com/)

Poyol
12-10-2012, 11:16 AM
It's now got a bad reputation due to shills and pimps I'm guessing.

Jason

path2prosperity
12-10-2012, 11:32 AM
It's now got a bad reputation due to shills and pimps I'm guessing.

Jason

If you meant Adlandpro in your comment Jason, it has a bad reputation because the site is just what "scratchy" has said ie "scammers scamming scammers."

Poyol
12-10-2012, 11:42 AM
I mean Realscam.com

Jason

Soapboxmom
12-10-2012, 11:56 AM
The scammers will do anything and everything to discredit RS. We so consistently hit the first page of Google we are putting a sizable dent in their scamming efforts:pou2:!

path2prosperity
12-10-2012, 12:01 PM
I think that we should inform as many of our scam buster friends and encourage them to join WOT. We need to make sure that the ponzi promoters who try to destroy RealScam and the members, who post invaluable information in RealScam threads get shown up for what they are.

scratchycat
12-10-2012, 12:04 PM
The scammers will do anything and everything to discredit RS. We so consistently hit the first page of Google we are putting a sizable dent in their scamming efforts:pou2:!

Yes and that place is just like a lot of others, they want money to have you advertise their icon on your website because that is exactly what you are doing if you pay them for a chance to have an image and link to their site. Why would I need to do that? Norton verifies my site is good with a green checkmark? I signed up just to see how it works! So I was able to give my own website a big boost!! Not that it really matters for that one.

scratchycat
12-10-2012, 12:40 PM
Just got my confirmation email:


This email confirms your registration for the free community-powered safe surfing tool Web of Trust. WOT protects against technical and non-technical online threats by combining real user ratings with information from third-party trusted sources, unlike any other online security solution.

Invite your friends to use WOT for safer surfing, and take part in a raffle to win an iPad here: Safe Browsing Tool | WOT (Web of Trust) (http://www.mywot.com/referral)


If you installed the WOT add-on to several computers, you do not have to register again. Simply log in to your existing account here: http://www.mywot.com/user

If you want to restore your ratings to the new add-on, use the Synchronize feature on your profile page after logging in.

For new users, we invite you to take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the way WOT works, so you can begin rating sites
yourself. Find information and answers to common questions on our Support page, Support | WOT (Web of Trust) (http://www.mywot.com/support)

Visit your Profile page where you can add a picture, talk with other WOT members and see a summary of your ratings, xxxxxxxxxxxxx/profile/edit

Stay in touch with us by liking us on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/weboftrust
and following us on Twitter http://twitter.com/web_of_trust

Welcome to the WOT community!

Safe surfing,
WOT Team
Safe Browsing Tool | WOT (Web of Trust) (http://www.mywot.com/)

You received this email because you registered with Web of Trust.
WOT Services Ltd. / Runeberginkatu 43 B 9 / Helsinki / 00100 / Finland

Don't think RS needs to worry about any kind of rating on this site!!

path2prosperity
12-10-2012, 01:53 PM
Don't think RS needs to worry about any kind of rating on this site!![/COLOR]

I am lost. Are you saying that this is a dubious site "scratchy". I joined WOT as it looked genuine and I wanted to put the promoters of dubious sites like Adlandpro in their place. I also wanted to help to give RealScam the high rating which it deserves.

Please can you explain your comments in more detail, as they have gone completely over my head.

kschang
12-10-2012, 02:07 PM
WOT is now rated "red", as some people put in a couple 0's. And who's the main hater? A "Vann", it seems. Sounds familiar?

Every member should go vote up WOT with meaningful comments. I just did. THEN complain to the WOT admin.

JustTooMuchTime
12-10-2012, 09:26 PM
WOT is a flawed system to begin with as it doesn't weight for expertise as far as I can tell.

chopperone
12-10-2012, 09:59 PM
It's now got a bad reputation due to shills and pimps I'm guessing.

Jason

Yes like people who sell Canadian pharmaceuticals. This person with name brockgs, http://www.mywot. com/en/user/122160 is a platinum member, but got there by copying URLs from internet blacklists and then pasting the same comment over and over. The company he represents failed at legitscript.com, but passes at cipa.com - both websites for checking online pharmacies, so don't know what's going on there. A few days ago, the spam was there in his site. Now it's all gone. It looks like WOT is maybe making members clean up before sites like this one expose them.

chopperone
12-11-2012, 12:58 AM
A big WOT box just popped up when I came here that said this was a bad site. That's never happened before.

littleroundman
12-11-2012, 01:55 AM
Personally, I'd be asking what relevance WOT has in the overall scheme of things and whether or not being "outed" by the likes of Kathleen Vanbekom aka "kcvan" is worth worrying about in the slightest.

WOT may have started out with the best of intentions, but, it's inability to prevent deliberate manipulation by the likes of Ms Vanbeekom and her fellow get-rich-quickers makes its' usefulness as a security site negligible to the average punter.

path2prosperity
12-11-2012, 02:27 AM
Personally, I'd be asking what relevance WOT has in the overall scheme of things and whether or not being "outed" by the likes of Kathleen Vanbekom aka "kcvan" is worth worrying about in the slightest.

WOT may have started out with the best of intentions, but, it's inability to prevent deliberate manipulation by the likes of Ms Vanbeekom and her fellow get-rich-quickers makes its' usefulness as a security site negligible to the average punter.

I am afraid that I have come round to that conclusion LRM. I had hoped that we could use the site to end the reign on VanBeekom and her tribe of sychophants but alas no it is too corrupted.

path2prosperity
12-11-2012, 03:54 AM
Scamland pimps are certainly intent on using WOT site to boost support for their own crappy ends. Take a look at this thread to try and get the masses and their "bots", shills, trolls and other cyberspace detrius to eulogise Adlandpro.

Type http:// then community.adlandpro.com/forums/post/2584378/Heres-What-YOU-can-do-for-Adlandpro-and-Yourself/2.aspx

scratchycat
12-11-2012, 09:31 AM
Some very good points made here and there are always two sides to a game such as this. I just posted a comment and would suggest other RS members to do the same. Now I will post one about RealScam. If they think going all over the internet to these TRUST sites and have their members tell how great the place is, well that one can be counteracted. I hope their new "advocate" is getting paid for all that work. Well I did notice in one of the comments about making money by promoting adland...

adlandpro.com | WOT Reputation Scorecard | WOT (Web of Trust) (http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/adlandpro.com#comment)

You may have to use the main site Safe Browsing Tool | WOT (Web of Trust) (http://www.mywot.com/), do a search on adlandpro.com and leave a comment (after giving a rating).

klagoosh
12-11-2012, 12:39 PM
Some very good points made here and there are always two sides to a game such as this. I just posted a comment and would suggest other RS members to do the same. Now I will post one about RealScam. If they think going all over the internet to these TRUST sites and have their members tell how great the place is, well that one can be counteracted. I hope their new "advocate" is getting paid for all that work. Well I did notice in one of the comments about making money by promoting adland...

adlandpro.com | WOT Reputation Scorecard | WOT (Web of Trust) (http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/adlandpro.com#comment)

You may have to use the main site Safe Browsing Tool | WOT (Web of Trust) (http://www.mywot.com/), do a search on adlandpro.com and leave a comment (after giving a rating).

K9 is a much better tool than WOT for anyone, no matter what their opinions are. That's exactly the problem, and the little experiment mentioned on ALP proves my point exactly. WOT, like several others out there, is opinion based, rather than based on facts. To their credit, when I reported five spammers on their site, who raised their own ranking by collecting URLs off blacklists and then spamming the comment boards with copy and paste comments, (and one would assume, ranking the sites by the same method), WOT has removed all their comments from inside their site. On the public side, the comments are still there.

I have also now had RS pop up spam warnings several times, meaning that RS has been reported for spam enough times to get flagged. This DOES NOT MEAN that RS is a spam outfit. It means RS has been reported for spam. There is a very big difference.

I have also noticed bad ratings from WOT against other "safe surfing" sites and vice versa. It seems to me they are all a bit of a waste of time. Norton, K9, McAfee all have much more scientific systems. I particularly like K9. If STOPS you from going any further, requiring a password, for sites it deems illegal (or possibly so), questionable, porn, hackers, hate, violence, spam, etc. Even the most diehard anti-scam folks might be very surprised at some of the sites it blocks. It is a very handy tool, and as far as I have found, cannot be manipulated.

Lil Ol' Radical Me
12-11-2012, 04:59 PM
The biggest problem with reputation, trust or rating sites like WOT is their criteria. If they are based on user opinions of the site's content, they are very easy to manipulate and subsequently are not very useful and in some cases can be very misleading. The Real Scam current rating is only one example of how irrelevant they can be as this site represents no harm to users with regard to technical issues such as tracking cookies or spyware, even though it seems to contain opinions that certain users of WOT disagree with. Nice to see it's Vendor Reliability is high, especially as no one sells anything on RS. Equally Scam dot com which now is full of all sorts of trackers, spam and porn links has a high rating which it no longer warrants (and child safe it is NOT) but reflects the situation on the site over 4 years ago not today.

Frankly any site that can be manipulated by a bunch of users praising or damning their pet sites does not have much value as a trust or reputation site.

Interestingly enough some of the official us.gov sites throw up dramatic warnings on my own antivirus system - but I guess that just means that Big Brother is watching us. lol

scratchycat
01-04-2013, 10:21 AM
Hey, has anybody been to this site?

Realscam had a pretty good rating started there, then it disappeared except for the top bar, and
now it's not rated at all!

Has anybody else noticed this?

I did a little checking and noticed several high ranking WOT members (five I've found so far) have spammed their way to the top. They used a blacklist site to skim the URLs and then posted the same comment for every one of them. Two of them who are platinum members are advertising Canadian Pharmaceuticals, which is illegal. (The Canadian government is cracking down on them, right now.)

These websites that are there to protect the public are a very welcome addition to the online world, but when the ones who are supposed to protect the public trust are allowing these kinds of practices, who do you trust?

Tell me I'm wrong...

Dave

Speaking of trust...
community.adlandpro.com/forums/post/2584378/Heres-What-YOU-can-do-for-Adlandpro-and-Yourself/1.aspx]Here's What YOU can do for Adlandpro and Yourself! | View Thread | AdlandPro Community

Since this was started on Dec. 4, 2012, anyone want to guess what happened to RS ratings about that time??

scratchycat
01-04-2013, 10:36 AM
After posting this in RealScam, the admins of Adlandpro have decided it is not such a good place of trust after all!!

2525

scratchycat
01-04-2013, 10:41 AM
However, even with the scammers screaming about RS, we are looking pretty good!

2524

littleroundman
07-23-2014, 03:14 AM
http://imageshack.com/a/img540/7600/05b1dc.jpg

Realscam.com (http://www.realscam.com) WOT scorecard, July 23, 2014 (https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/www.realscam.com)

scratchycat
07-25-2014, 11:26 AM
Looking good!! Thanks for the update LRM.

kschang
07-29-2014, 04:20 AM
WOT spamming, along with equivalent spamming of NortonWeb and McAfee web (whatever their names are) is nothing new. Seen it done with TVI Express and Zeek before. The admins there are usually on the case quickly and ban the spammers and lock up the ratings page, much like Wikipedia.

A (MLM) Skeptic: Bad Argument: abusing crowd-sourced filtering (http://amlmskeptic.blogspot.com/2012/09/bad-argument-abusing-crowd-sourced.html)