It’s not often that I search for the term Malwarebytes on Google. I know how to get to my own company’s website by typing it into the address bar. However, when a friend or family member asks me how to get to our website, I almost always instruct them to search.
Unfortunately, there exists a market where bad people benefit by preying on our users. They create websites which advertise that they distribute Malwarebytes and instead, download a product of their own onto our user’s machine. They advertise on Google and turn up in search results. I’d equate this to a cereal company packaging their generic, less delicious brand into a Cheerios box and putting it on shelves.
If you see a page like this, it is fraudulent and you should go directly to www.malwarebytes.org instead.
It makes me sick, and I refuse to let it go on. Today, I instructed our legal team to pursue all of these cheaters in hopes that we can wipe them from the face of the Internet.
But that’s not all. How far is too far? Should advertisers on Google be allowed to use company names as keywords? If I search for Cheerios, should the first advertisement be for the generic brand? It’s allowed, a common practice, and in my opinion completely unethical.