http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/26/avg_disguises_fake_traffic_as_ie6/
By Cade Metz in San Francisco
The Register
26th June 2008
Exclusive - AVG has rejiggered the fake traffic it's spewing across the
internet, causing new headaches for the world's webmasters.
In late February, AVG paired its updated anti-virus engine with a
real-time malware scanner that vets search engine results before you
click on them. If you search Google, for instance, this LinkScanner
automatically visits each address that turns up on Google's results
page.
According to the company, more than 20 million people have downloaded
the new AVG 8, and this has caused a huge up-tick in traffic on sites
across the web, including The Register. Because the scanner attempts to
disguise itself as a real live human click, webmasters who rely on log
files for their traffic numbers may be unaware their stats are skewed.
And others complain that LinkScanner has added extra dollars to their
bandwidth bill.
[...]
Received on Fri Jun 27 01:01:24 2008