Fifteen Minutes of Infamy: Google’s Epic Fail

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
Messages
4,646
While you were sleeping in this morning, Google decided to break the internet for about 15 minutes. TechCrunch (along with most other blogs that are active this morning) has screencaps that show how every site was flagged as malware in the search engine. Whoops!

EDIT: Here's the official response from the Search Engine VP. I quoted a bit of it below. You can carry on with your digital lives, netizens.

We periodically receive updates to that list and received one such update to release on the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here's the human error), the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs.
Click to expand...
 
I thought the problem was on my end (proxy, noscript update, etc) until I read reports about other people having the same problem. Weird to see Wikipedia flagged as a malware site...
 
I saw this happen too... I thought I was going to go crazy. I wish Google would knock it off with all their results, it's my choice to determine there is crap on a site.
 
Updated OP with Google's official response. The Intarwebz is safe! Yay!
 
SockMan! --
I thought the problem was on my end (proxy, noscript update, etc) until I read reports about other people having the same problem. Weird to see Wikipedia flagged as a malware site...
Click to expand...

Yeah, when I tried to go to a Wiki page earlier and saw it was malware-flagged, I knew something was wrong hahaha...
 
I'm sorry for all the clueless people who will now think that all the sites they visit through google are harmless and are scared right now.
 
Stuff happens, geez. If this had been Microsoft's doing there would have be a hanging in Redmond today.
 
trick_m0nkey said:
Google is human afterall!
Click to expand...

Very human. Outside of Internet search (which is the best right now) and annoying ads everywhere (which I know is necessary for the money so I live with it) what does Google do that actually makes them money? Not a lot.
 
I'm surprised the statement didn't end with my personal favorite: end of line.
 
I was trying to go to www.irs.gov this morning and thought dang, I always knew they were grubby but trying to invade my computer as well? I know I was filing online but they don't need to help me any more than they already are with their confusing rules.
 
LOL. This sort of mistake could easily be prevented with a minimal suite of test automation. But GOOG has never impressed me with their QA acumen, so it's not really that shocking that this happened. And yes, the list is provided by a third party: even more reason for GOOG to validate before deployment. GOOG QA FAIL.
 
While you were sleeping in this morning, Google decided to break the internet for about 15 minutes.
Click to expand...

In my time zone it happened at about 3.30 in the afternoon.
Also it lasted for nearly an hour, from 3.30 to 4.25 pm.

I didn't actually realize Google was broken. I figured they had installed some new super-aggressive and super-annoying malware filter and was looking for a way to turn it off.
 
ianken said:
LOL. This sort of mistake could easily be prevented with a minimal suite of test automation. But GOOG has never impressed me with their QA acumen, so it's not really that shocking that this happened. And yes, the list is provided by a third party: even more reason for GOOG to validate before deployment. GOOG QA FAIL.
Click to expand...

Is it somehow more natural to call them GOOG instead of their name... Google?
 
ianken said:
LOL. This sort of mistake could easily be prevented with a minimal suite of test automation. But GOOG has never impressed me with their QA acumen, so it's not really that shocking that this happened. And yes, the list is provided by a third party: even more reason for GOOG to validate before deployment. GOOG QA FAIL.
Click to expand...

The funny thing is most of their products work way better than most other web things. They have some of the cleanest code and web apps of anyone, one reason many of us love them.

JimmiG said:
In my time zone it happened at about 3.30 in the afternoon.
Also it lasted for nearly an hour, from 3.30 to 4.25 pm.

I didn't actually realize Google was broken. I figured they had installed some new super-aggressive and super-annoying malware filter and was looking for a way to turn it off.
Click to expand...

Most of us on this site are in the USA, thus Terry's comment.
 
I thought I need more sleep or something. I was trying to sign up for a reputable site and all hell broke lose.
 
I actually scanned my PC for malware, thought I had a nasty in there that was causing this. When I read about the actual cause, it made me LOL....
 
Certainly funny event.

But how did it break the internet? Seems to me the net was still working fine and a simple search on any other engine would have gotten around the annoyance.
 
Dreaz said:
Certainly funny event.

But how did it break the internet? Seems to me the net was still working fine and a simple search on any other engine would have gotten around the annoyance.
Click to expand...

Google is the top dog in searches right now and if a google search says something is wrong with every site a person tries to go to people will PANIC. Not everyone is as tech savvy as those that browse this site.

I still have to deal with customers that fall for those rogue anti-spyware/virus programs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top