Re: brightcloud.com - for those who like a touch of venom with their snake oil

[sundialsvc4]

Furthermore, notice that there is no person to sue.   An “automatic classifier” made the call, and when you complained to a human-being, s/he responded timely.

And, as for the tens of thousands of other companies whose sites might be similarly “auto-blacklisted,” the odds are pretty good that no harm is being done to them, because if it were, they too would have done as you did.   If the baby’s not crying, and is breathing, then presumably he is not in pain.

And so, the company, or rather the company’s (and Google’s ...) bots, are dishing out a heaping helping of “feel-good snake oil.”   Yes, they are standing on the tower walls and calling out, “Wolf!” ... and maybe they have found a way to make money at it.   It sure did good by Peter Norton.

“ ... and two to take him.”

[syphilis]

Thanks for the interesting responses, guys.

I wasn't really contemplating taking legal action. I thought that perhaps there might be some consumer watchdog organisation somewhere that might be able to pull them into line a bit - but, as I think more about it, such a watchdog would probably be toothless, anyway.

I thought they might have at least said "sorry", and maybe even made out that they were working hard at eliminating such slip ups.
But, as was pointed out, brightcloud.com (or webroot) really have nothing for which to apologise. It's all the fault of that damned "Automated Classifier" - that's who *should* be apologising.

Cheers,
Rob

[Anonymous Monk]

But, as was pointed out, brightcloud.com (or webroot) really have nothing for which to apologise. It's all the fault of that damned "Automated Classifier" - that's who *should* be apologising.

FWIW, I imagine they're just running a signature based virusscanner, and those throw up false positives all the time (they're just scanning for byte strings)

But they should be running 30 virus/malware/scanners, if 10 or 20 flag the file, then it might be bad :) I don't think I've seen the same file flagged by more than 2 stay flagged for very long

[Argel]

I wonder if from a legal standpoint apologizing might be tantamount to admitting fault.

[syphilis]

I wonder if from a legal standpoint apologizing might be tantamount to admitting fault

That shouldn't be the case - but one can never be too sure about anything when the legal profession gets involved. I often find myself saying "sorry" - more as an appeasement, rather than an admission of guilt.
(Maybe I should stop doing that before someone sues me ;-)

In this particular instance, I think the driving force is either apathy or arrogance (perhaps both) - they simply couldn't care less.

Cheers,
Rob