Google’s blockade of PinkNews.co.uk leaves unanswered questions

PinkNews logo surrounded by illustrated images including a rainbow, unicorn, PN sign and pride flag.

We are back. After more than 48 hours of being listed by Google as an “attack site,” our readers across the world can now access our site.

Hundreds of readers from across the world contacted PinkNews.co.uk to express their frustration at not being able to read our regularly updated news.

Users of Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Google’s search engine were unable to access PinkNews.co.uk because of alleged security vulnerabilities.

Google listed the site as containing “badware” (viruses) on the StopBadware.org service.

The website lists a number of alleged security vulnerabilities that they claim were installed by third parties, likely hackers.

Having meticulously searched through every single piece of code on the website, our technical staff did not find any vulnerabilities at all and were puzzled as to why this has happened.

The ban on PinkNews.co.uk was lifted earlier today.

“Google’s decision to temporarily label us as a site with “badware” has severly impacted on our traffic,” said PinkNews.co.uk editor Tony Grew.

“Hundreds of users have written to us to complain and we will record a reduction in revenue as a result.

“The procedure used must be called into question.

“I would like to thank all our readers across the world for their concern and their loyalty throughout this extremely difficult period for the site.”

A spokesman for Google told PinkNews.co.uk:

“Google has set up a number of automated systems to scour our index for potentially dangerous sites, and we add a label to those that appear to be a vehicle for malware, to protect users who might visit them.

“We also work with webmasters to help them keep their sites secure.

“It’s important to note that sites can sometimes be compromised without the webmaster’s knowledge, so we work to provide affected webmasters with further information on the issues we’ve identified, as well as tools to help them clean their sites and then request a review.

“All this stems directly from our security philosophy: We believe that if we all work together to identify threats and stamp them out, we can make the web a safer place for everyone.

“To that point, other search engines have also implemented similar tools to help detect sites that have become infected with malware.”

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