Web of Trust (evaluation platform)
Web of Trust (short WOT - network of trust) is one of the largest evaluation platforms for websites and is usually used with the help of a browser extension . The code is available as open source in the GNU GPLv3 , but the main program to which the ratings are sent and by which they are then analyzed is proprietary . WOT was originally developed by Sami Tolvanen and Timo Ala-Kleemola in 2006 and officially launched in 2007. According to WOT, the company's headquarters are in Helsinki in Finland . However, the service is offered from the United States of America .
functionality
The functions of WOT can also be accessed via the operator's website, but most users use them directly in the form of a browser extension that is available for Mozilla Firefox , Internet Explorer , Opera , Google Chrome and Apple Safari . According to the operator, the basic principle of WOT is that every user can rate any website or domain in the categories of trustworthiness and protection of minors. Each user can only post a single rating for each website with their browser and change it at any time. The ratings given by all users for a specific website are summarized and a resulting weighted average is formed, which in turn is displayed in the browser in the form of a colored ring when every user visits a website. The color of the ring serves the user analogously to a traffic light system as an indication of the trustworthiness of the accessed website (green, yellow and red for trustworthy, less trustworthy and untrustworthy), whereby the display can be adapted for people with color ametropia .
The more users rate a particular website, the more representative and manipulation-resistant the mean value formed from the individual ratings should be. With the help of this concept of swarm intelligence , an overall assessment that is as representative as possible and difficult to manipulate due to the large number of individual assessments is to be created, which depicts the average of a large number of users. In addition, each user can also write personal comments on websites that have been rated by them, in which they justify their rating in their own words.
User ratings are sometimes weighted differently. The rating of a user who has submitted a large number of ratings can be weighted higher than that of a user who only uses the tool selectively. The most active users are also offered access to a "mass rating tool", with the help of which up to 100 pages can be rated simultaneously without having to visit them.
In addition to this free service, WOT also offers premium services for website operators.
Trading in personal data
In its user and data protection regulations , WOT points out that the data of its users are anonymized and depersonalized, stored and processed.
In fact, research results published by Norddeutscher Rundfunk on November 1, 2016 , showed that the data records sold by WOT to data dealers allowed indications of the identity of the users. The data records that the NDR acquired from the data dealers could, in some cases, be clearly assigned to a respective user through the clear names or email addresses contained in the URLs of the browser history. In addition, all personal data can be called up from those online storage services whose protection principle is based solely on a cryptic URL address. The journalists were able to show that WOT is one of the data dealer's sources. The NDR therefore advised the immediate removal of the WOT browser extension. On November 3, 2016, WOT was removed from the extensions offered by Mozilla Firefox , Google Chrome and Opera . In December 2016, WOT announced that the product had been restarted after a six-week revision phase. The anonymization techniques have been improved to protect user data. The browser providers then made the plugin available again on the relevant platforms.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ crunchbase.com WOT Services
- ↑ Whois.com domain registrar entry mywot.com
- ↑ Mass rating tool - WOT Wiki .
- ↑ WOT Services Ltd .: Privacy Policy. Retrieved November 5, 2016 .
- ↑ NDR: Naked in the net: millions of users spied on. In: www.ndr.de. Retrieved November 1, 2016 .
- ↑ heise online: data on surfing behavior of millions of Germans as a "free trial". In: heise online. Retrieved November 1, 2016 .
- ↑ WOT add-on: How a browser add-on spies on its users. Retrieved November 2, 2016 .
- ↑ heise online: Tapped browser data: Mozilla removes "Web of Trust". In: heise online. Retrieved November 4, 2016 .
- ↑ We're back! In: Web of Trust Blog. WOT Services LLC, December 19, 2016, accessed on June 8, 2017 (English): "We are proud to announce that after over 6 intense weeks we have created a new version and boosted our anonymization techniques to protect our users."