

Dropbox.com blocked by Google? - alunny
http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=https://www.dropbox.com/

======
patio11
The quickest way to get this resolved is to make it a PR issue for Google.

One suggestion: "It has been widely rumored that Google is developing GDrive,
a cloud based file hosting service. Today, Google has blocked Dropbox, a cloud
based file hosting service which would compete with GDrive, from appearing in
its index. Is it fair that Google can unilaterally cause its competitors to
essentially disappear from the Internet, without possibility of appeal, for
reasons known only to them?"

~~~
sweis
Sites are automatically flagged when malware is detected. Dropbox may be
serving malware without knowing it. This page has instructions about how to
request a malware review:
[http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answe...](http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=45432#2)

~~~
patio11
Google is well-aware that doing business on an Internet scale means you start
clocking _measurable economic losses_ immediately when the site goes down, and
for all intents and purposes Google has just handed Dropbox a service
interruption because Google far and away the most powerful entity on the
Internet. I can't even bring Dropbox up in my browser by typing in _their
domain name_ , to say nothing of the _majority of Internet users_ who use
Google as their primary means of navigation.

If it were my business that was down, I'd go for the PR route before asking
for a review, because you know what? Google _sucks_ at putting a human in the
loop. They hate it. It costs money and doesn't scale to the entire Internet.

When I type stuff into forms at Google, I expect to hear back around a week
later on those occassions when they actually get back to me, and _I pay Google
thousands of dollars to provide the service I'm asking about_. One would hope
I'm getting the good customer experience compared to some anonymous malware
distributor saying they've reformed their ways.

(Less you think I'm joking: Google for [reinclusion request] to see what
Google's suggested timeline is for reinclusion in their index if you are
bounced out for SEO practices they don't approve of. Hint: think months, not
minutes.]

In the amusing-to-contemplate-fantasy-world where there was any entity as
powerful as Google on the Internet, and that entity blocked access to 60% of
Google users for distributing malware (well, it is highly likely that Google
is a contributing factor to more malware infections than anyone else on earth
-- see "owns navigation on the Internet"), I _highly doubt_ that Larry would
ask Sergey to write something into a web form somewhere and then, you know,
wait until somebody got around to addressing it.

~~~
pavs
You are reading too much in to it.

~~~
qeorge
I don't think Patrick read into anything there. He does not imply that Google
did this intentionally at all.

His point holds water for me, getting blocked by Google is a huge problem for
any business, and its impossible to get in touch with Google short of making a
fuss.

Consider this tweet from Dropbox:

"Having trouble reaching the right folks @ Google re: browser warnings; email
abuse@dropbox.com to help, thanks"

<http://twitter.com/Dropbox/status/5612052146>

Not to mention, the timing sucks: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=935009>
(Google announces today they've increased their storage quota to 20GB/$5,
which happens to be very competitive with Dropbox).

Not getting out the tinfoil hat, but this isn't right.

------
jacquesm
[http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Adropbox.com&ie=utf...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Adropbox.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-
US:unofficial&client=firefox-a)

shows 71 pages indexed

[http://www.google.com/search?q=dropbox.com&ie=utf-8&...](http://www.google.com/search?q=dropbox.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-
US:unofficial&client=firefox-a)

has 1.7 million mentions

It works fine for me...

When you switch domains the history of the new domain is somewhat important
and how you go about switching is pretty important too if you want to keep
your google traffic.

~~~
patio11
They appear to have done it right, though: 301 redirecting the old domain to
the corresponding URLs on the new domain, which is the SEO best practice that
Google tells you to do.

(I know there is a Firefox extension that would let you check this but since I
am intensely lazy I opened up a terminal and telneted to www.getdropbox.com on
port 80 then typed "GET www.getdropbox.com/" enter, which produced the
expected result, a 301 redirect header and some human readable text for idiots
like me who test things by telnet.)

~~~
jacquesm
What I don't get is what they mean with 'dropbox.com blocked by Google', I
can't find any proof of that and the diagnostics page shows some history
information which indicates that there is not and has not been a problem.

Does anybody have a screenshot of what it looks like with the 'problem'
visible ?

------
piers
They've only blocked the secure site for that domain name. Might be because
the SSL certificate is still for www.getdropbox.com

------
SwellJoe
Since it is effectively a free and anonymous hosting service (files hosted can
be shared publicly via HTTP), I can easily imagine it being used for
distributing malware.

~~~
catch23
though couldn't any of the file storage places have the same issue (mosso, s3,
etc)?

~~~
shaddi
Because they just switched domains (getdropbox.com to dropbox.com), they
haven't built up a positive reputation on their new domain yet. As a result,
only a handful of instances of malware being served by a user can get the
domain blocked.

I wonder how effective this sort of attack would be against Dropbox in the
future.

~~~
zachware
Valid point and it crossed my mind too, however Google's systems are aware of
domain shifts (I assume the Dropbox folks filed a domain change) and it should
know about its 'transferred' positive rap.

If the block is solely based on malware distribution then Facebook would have
suffered the same fait ages ago.

Amisdst all the data Google stores it should be clear that Dropbox isn't a
random site freely dropping malware around the web.

If it can't figure it out then a good old fashioned human should.

~~~
shaddi
I'm pretty sure this is the issue. Google wouldn't know to treat Dropbox
"special" just because they switched domains. "dropbox.com" hasn't been around
long enough in its current incarnation for it to be "clear that [it] isn't a
random site freely dropping malware around the web."

See: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=934704>

~~~
zachware
But then what's the point of the change of address tool in Google Webmaster
Tools?

Screenshot: <http://bit.ly/4xZpA8>

~~~
shaddi
Obviously it is for this purpose, but the fact that it exists doesn't mean it
was used properly in this case or that their change notice was updated in a
timely fashion.

------
selvakn
its fake.. Check this out
[http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnost...](http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://www.google.com)

------
albertni
I don't understand how they can block a site this big and this heavily
trafficked without even making an attempt to contact anyone.

~~~
chaosmachine
Automation. They accidentally flagged the entire internet a while ago.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=459590>

