A new search service from GeoTrust will see its TrustWatch product provide “rating symbols” for links retrieved in a search.
When retrieving a set of search results, it isn’t readily apparent for most people when a listing on the result page may not be a legitimate site. Criminals have been developing more and more sophisticated ways of deceiving people online.
GeoTrust debuted its TrustWatch search engine recently. In a statement, the company explains how TrustWatch can help users separate reality from scams:
Sites that can be verified by trusted third parties receive a green “verified” rating; sites that have not been verified, but are not known to be fraudulent, receive a yellow “not verified” rating; and known fraudulent sites display a red “warning” rating.
TrustWatch delivers search results from Ask.com; ratings delivered by GeoTrust accompany those results. With those results, a “Site Report” link can be clicked to retrieve an explanation of the rating for the site along with its Alexa data, and links to more data from HACKER SAFE, BizRate and TRUSTe when available for a site.
Inside that Site Report, users can click links to report the site as fraudulent, or to nominate it with feedback as either a site the user likes and trusts, or does not like, along with a space for comments.
GeoTrust ratings draw from several sources, the company stated. Their technology checks to see if the site has been reported as a phishing site with sources like Cyota and the Anti-Phishing Working Group.
A toolbar providing a TrustWatch search box can be downloaded for integration with Internet Explorer.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
