The developers of WOT aka Web of Trust, are in the business of selling security seals for websites, so they have a vested interest in making website owners afraid of negative ratings.
web of trust scam
- MyWOT web of trust criminals
WOT mywot.com – G7W – David Raynard (Stadler) Ohio violent criminal
Facebook does not use them , facebook buys them. Think of it this way, fb rich wot poor , WOT gives facebook bad ratings facebook says , we shut you down we have more cash, then huge turn around and facebook number one in all around customer satisfaction. Big announcement facebook partners up with WOT , anyone smell a fish? It would be a good idea if it wasn’t such a scam.
Money is what really buys trust when it comes to WOT. The company was almost in the toilet and facebook payed them millions to shut them down or rate facebook number one. We who have known all the problems facebook has had can’t imagine it rating number one in everything. In the world.
So if I get a million bucks or whatever it takes to buy trust, maybe I will be able to get my site out of the toilet??
This is Spyware people, plain and simple. I thought it was a good concept until I learned how it works. They are building the largest database of personal info they mine while users falsely think they are safe now.
Persistent cookies, no enforcement of their own TOS or third party like Whois. These people think all websites are a threat unless they get their trust seal for almost 500 dollars a year!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/MyWOT-Web-Of-Trust-scams/139741496064306
http://www.facebook.com/Anti.W0T
Big WIN to honest and decent internet users
Big Loss to mywot.com and their internet scams
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA ORLANDO DIVISION
CAREER NETWORK, INC; THREE
STARS MEDIA, INC.; THREE STARS,
INC., dba Threestars of Central Florida,
Inc.; INTERNETCOMPANY, INC., dba
Internet-Company of Central Florida, Inc.;
MEDIALOGIC, INC.; POWER
APPLICATIONS, INC.; MONKEYJAR,
INC.; and BUZZGRUB, INC.,
Plaintiffs,
-vs- Case No. 6:10-cv-1826-Orl-31KRS
WOT SERVICES, LTD.; AGAINST
INTUITION, INC.; ESA SUURIO; VESA
PERALA; SAMI TOLVAHEN; TIMO
ALA-KLEEMOLA; DAVID STADLER,
aka g7w; and JOHN AND JANE DOES
1THROUGH 100,
Defendants.
Court documents to read >> WOT – mywot – Court documents
David Raynard (Stadler) criminal of mywot
G7W aka David Raynard (Stadler) is a convict according to public records in Ohio
David A Raynard
Full Name: Raynard, David A DOB: 3/17/1959
Gender: Male Race: White
State: Ohio Address: OH
OFFENSE DETAILS (1 OF 2)
Offense Desc: ROBBERY Case Type: DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
State Code: OH
OFFENSE DETAILS (2 OF 2)
Offense Desc: DRUG ABUSE Case Type: DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
State Code: OH”
G7W.net, David Stadler, is an uneducated moron who has knowingly smeared many (over 1 million) Companies with completely false ratings on behalf of his Finland criminal employers (www.mywot.com)
g7w - David Raynard says he has had “personal experiences” with over 700 businesses a day (every day for 3 years running), which resulted in his terrible ratings against them. How is this possible? Obviously it isn’t possible, which means his ratings are intentionally malicious and false.
MyWot Reviews – MyWot Trustworthiness Exposed (Scam, Phishing, Child Safety)
by PAWEL RESZKA on SEPTEMBER 14, 2011
MyWot.com is the worst thing that has ever hit the internet so far. MyWot is a scam on massive scale and I am writing this post to expose them.
They call themselves “The Web Of Trust” LOL!! MYWOT is a user powered rating site (with top 100 members who are nothing more than power hungry zealots that can gang up on you if they choose so)
Nobody would actually care if Facebook didn’t start using their data to protect their user base from malicious links being force-fed to them. We all know that scams thrive on Facebook but this is not the way.
Everytime you have an entity that has power to wipe out someone’s business overnight it creates corruption, mistrust, and a free pass for the true scams to grow even bigger. I am going to give you some proof that this is already happening on MYWOT and how their site should not be trusted.
I actually didn’t even pay attention to them because their site has not affected me before, but now since I have experienced the evil inside MYWOT I have decided to speak up.
The other day I was reading a post on Jonathan Volk’s blog about how MYWOT has voted down his dad’s website unfairly. None of the people who actually voted negatively used the service or are customers.
Anyway, I decided to check out MYWOT and request evaluation of my blog, Affhelper.com. Keep in mind that there was a positive rating for my site before I submitted it for evaluation.
Here is the link to my score card
Here is the link to the forum thread where they evaluated it 
I provided nothing but facts about my blog, but the gang rushed to vote down my site simply because it talks about making money.
Introducing the SuperHero58 power hungry user who does in fact thinks he is a super hero with some amazing powers over at WOT (Well Organized Turds)
If this screenshot doesn’t raise a red flag for you then I don’t know what will. There is no way this user can objectively rate 816 sites per day, unless he is using his super hero super weapon like the tool that WOT has for their top 100 members that allows them to rate 100 sites with a click of a button.
So after making my post the SuperHero58 (turd) starts the bandwagon of negativity and rates my blog “very poor” for all criteria that WOT has.
What are the criteria?
So according to WOT reading my blog can put your child in danger but sending them to 1channel.ch (A website with no respect for copyright laws) is Excellent.
Yep, your kids now don’t have to watch movies alone! They can hook up with hot chicks in their local area.
But here is the rating for 1channel.ch
So a website that violates copyright laws on massive scale and sends users to known spyware and phishing sites has excellent rating, but my blog where you get useful tips and information must be a scam because it could help you become a successful affiliate.
But here is where it gets interesting. You see, SuperHero58 is a power user with special super hero privileges. When he rates your website it has much bigger impact than when other regular users rate it.
So no matter how many people go and vote for my blog his rating will overweight yours.
But it gets even better!
He is a true super hero over at Well Organized Turds because when you vote his comments down he makes your votes disappear into oblivion.
Check this out
Now 2 Hours Later
You cannot disagree with him. Whatever he says will stay on top because he will keep resetting his thumbdowns.
So why would I care about this so much?
Well, the problem is that when someone has the WOT plugin installed on their browser it will display a popup over the site with poor rating warning the user.
So now if you go to my blog with that malicious spyware of theirs you will see something like this.
This not only makes me look bad but also prevents traffic to my site.
The big problem is now that Facebook pulls data from Well Organized Turds to check website’s legitimacy.
Facebook has made a big mistake here. Think about it, if your competitor doesn’t want you to advertise on Facebook all they have to do is get your rating down and …POOF … you are gone!
Google has made a similar mistake with DMoz directory. Google used to use DMoz to run their own directory which created a lot of corruption. Business owners would become editors and list their own sites while preventing direct competitors from being accepted. Proof is out there if you are willing to do some digging.
It took Google many years to realize that DMoz couldn’t be trusted anymore so they dropped them.
I really do hope that it doesn’t take Facebook so many years to figure out that MYWOT cannot be trusted.
Everytime there is a community powered site that has the ability to influence ecommerce and how people do business online it leads to corruption, growth of monopolies, and mistrust.
But wait MYWOT also has plans to monetize their user base.
This user named Deborah Salmi who seems to be a press contact for WOT stated on FraudWatchers.org that WOT has some ideas on how to monetize their business model in the future.
She says
Briefly, WOT is a start-up company with investment from sources such as Michael Widenius investment company Open Ocean, the Finnish Industry Investment Ltd., and a handful of private investors. There are ideas on how to eventually monetize WOT, but none include selling any of our users’ private information.
They might not sell your information but they will learn your browsing habits and eventually sell advertising. Mark my words!
So back to SuperHero58 
He stated on my rating card that my blog is associated with “phishing and other scams”. According to Well Organized Turds if you collect email addresses (it doesn’t matter that users actually need to confirm their subscription) your site is engaging in phishing lol
These people have no idea what they are talking about. This is why a security site should be run by qualified security professionals and not by morons.
Anyway, this post is about to get even better
I decided to get some unbeatable proof that corruption already exists within WOT (Web Of Trust).
After the SuperHero58 user (who came down on earth to save you from web scams) posted all his ridiculous comments I did some digging.
I went to Freelance sites and discovered that people already post projects to change their WOT (MYWOT- Web Of Trust – Well Organized Turds…whatever) ratings.
I went and posted my own too, so I can see what kind of responses I will get from the bidders. My plan wasn’t to use them, but only to be able to expose WOT’s already existing fraudulent activity, and show you why you should immediately remove WOT’s plugin from your computer.
Here is what I posted:
Within just a few hours I already had 2 bids Great!
So I checked the messages and here is what one bidder wrote:
So this guy already penetrated WOT and has 200 accounts! I bet that if I paid him some premium bonus he would also vote down some of my competitors.
By the way, if someone needs this proof for a lawsuit, feel free to contact me and I will be happy to provide more information about this.
There you have it ladies and gentlemen. Proof “black on white” that WOT (Well Organized Turds) cannot be trusted and needs to be investigated. If some dude overseas has the power to post negative ratings about businesses here in the US, or vote positive for some malicious site from 200 WOT accounts then where is the credibility?
I encourage you to link to this post or any other post about these con artists at WOT.
Facebook needs to drop them like a hot potato asap or it’s only going to get worse.
The web should remain neutral. If we keep trying to policy it and create gatekeepers then it’s only going to get more difficult for small businesses to get started.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all about safety of the web and weeding out the scams, but this is not the way.
UPDATE: I decided to make a quick video for you with some more facts about MyWot …Enjoy 
UPDATE: This is a video from MyWot’s official Youtube channel. They accuse me of phishing because I have an optin form that asks for Name and Email but they want all your demographic data so they can later monetize it LOL
By the way, the last sentence at the end of the video (whit the black screen and their logo) when she says “..And please tell a friend” sounds sooo freaking evil, doesn’t it?
Post your comments below. I would like to hear your opinion.
Tagged as: mywot, ratings, web of trust
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
WOT Scam September 15, 2011 at 10:42 am-
MyWot is a known scam site. Do not download their plugin! They have an evil agenda behind their business model. Their ratings are rigged and some top members own hundreds of accounts. I tell everyone to stay away from these scammers.
asafesite September 15, 2011 at 4:05 pm-
Don’t let their rating of your website bug you. NO one trusts WOT. A better alternative is asafesite.com
Bob Volk September 15, 2011 at 6:54 pm-
Wow- excellent article Pawel. I LOVE the exposure of the paid harlots willing to pimp themselves out with over 200 mywot accounts- that is Fantastic proof.
I am definitively interested in getting more info from you. I have a contact number of a very well connected lawyer here in California- am going to check on a lawsuit against them and anyone involved in this mafioso like attack on innocent businesses.
I feel partially responsible here because all this was originally targeted at my company (who is not involved in marketing or anything else nefarious) even though we are in our 4th year of doubling sales of our hydrogen generators and are negotiating on major contracts as we speak.
I feel like a leper – everyone connected to me is automatically rated dangerous….
I have tried to reason with Sami and his super spammers until I was blue in the face, but he refuses to delete or reverse the lies against us.
Even with 120:8 ratio of Positive comments (from our customers who were outraged at the lies and false allegations) to the 8 false , none of them even matter, nor have they changed our phishing/scam rating by one point. I mean, we are not talking about a few people- we had 120 comments and excellent ratings from our customers yet nothing changed!
The one thing that DID change was the Sami BLOCKED all further ratings comments on my account. He has also threatened to delete my account because I won’t “shut up and quit emailing him”
My customers are furious and our sales have suffered because of mywot. I will not stop until this is settled and all of you are back in the green, and the liars are exposed.Thanks for helping to spread the news to expose this new form of cyber terrorism!
Pawel Reszka September 15, 2011 at 8:31 pm-
Hey Bob, thanks for stopping by and commenting. Their true colors show through their actions plain and simple. I posted a quick video update with some interesting facts about their Company’s Official Youtube channel.
- Bob Volk September 16, 2011 at 2:15 pm
-
Interesting research Pawel. I am sharing the link to this article to everyone I know, and have contacted a local radio talk show here in the Bay Area- see if we can step things up a bit against them. I will also email my entire list today with a link to your site and this great expose’ – because many were furious over our treatment by them. Facts do not seem to matter- somehow they have assigned themselves the judgement gods of the internet, and yet they have made sure that no one can vote them a scam. I and many of my customers went in and rated THEIR site as a scam phishing site – only to be reprimanded by Sami, and threatened to have their account deleted. None of us could find our posts afterward, so I think Sami just deleted them.
What a hypocrite! He/she? can delete a false rating about their site- but refuses to delete false and libelous statements about others? Wow- that is TOOO much power with no checks and balances (except maybe the checks that Sami and the Super Spammers get paid to do their damage with)
Thanks again for holding the line…
Lex Luthor September 15, 2011 at 9:45 pm-
Amazing!!! It would almost seem as if SuperHero58 is on their pay role. Even if he only spends a minute rating each site (816 sites per day), he’s still putting in 13 hours and 36 minutes per day… EVERY DAY! What dedication! I’m glad to know that someone out their can honestly and objectively review sites everyday for most of their waking minutes (Each in under 1 minute) in order to keep the people safe from every site, except the websites containing adware. (Online Movie sites almost all link to some video software, which installs adware, and SuperHero58 says they’re safe… So they must be.)
Thanks SuperHero58… You truly are the Superman of the Internet!
Make Fish Lures September 16, 2011 at 12:59 pm-
Thanks for exposing this info about mywot.com, very educational, I agree it looks very corrupt
- Bob Volk September 16, 2011 at 2:18 pm
-
Oh- by the way sites like youporn are rated excellent as well…..I checked. They must not want to attack people that have the money and power to take them down.
Grumpy Bill September 16, 2011 at 2:33 pm-
Hey Pawel, Great post.
I’ve seen several other sites like this popping up recently which is very bothering. The advertised benefits of their ranking systems sound attractive to many who are led to believe they will be protected, in some way, from scammers when in fact they are being scammed.
Beware, people…You are being controlled!
This kind of thing has been going on in big business for decades…
Just take a look at our government – The most influential members in Congress and the Senate come from backgrounds in big business and special interests…
They alter our Constitution, create laws and wield the power in this Country/World and let there be no mistake.
Their ultimate goals are not in your best interest. 
A WOT hater September 18, 2011 at 11:57 pm-
(initially posted in a comment section at ripoffreport.com about mywot)
Reply to MyWOT rebuttal…I am getting pretty tired reading the same replies by Deb, Sami and the rest of WOT. Those replies read like boring marketing-text and the parrot-like repetitions start to show cracks while years go by as it becomes obvious that mywot.com is not what it would like to be: “a system to be trusted”.
Having seen these answers over and over again, time has come to open my mouth.
So lean back and enjoy the ride!
Why not to trust MyWOT…
It’s actually rather simple to explain why it’s not a good idea to trust the “Web Of Trust”.
They use a simple Likert scale as a rating system.
The format of a typical five-level Likert item is:
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Neither agree nor disagree
4. Agree
5. Strongly agreeBUT – it is a known fact (not only among scientists) that Likert scales may be subject to distortion from several causes:
1. Respondents may avoid using extreme response categories (central tendency bias);
2. agree with statements as presented (acquiescence bias);
3. or try to portray themselves or their organization in a more favorable light (social desirability bias).That “distortion” as described in Nr. 2 happens in – at least – two places at MyWOT:
• activity points – people want to get platinum to gain access to the Mass Rating Tool as soon as possible;
• “secret” user reputation – this is the individual user “trust” which represents the “power” a user has when rating a website.
The later (secret user reputation) also is part of Nr. 3: the social desirability bias. This “social desirability” is something which also is underlined in the community, where people get intimidated and slandered if they don’t swim with the rest of the fish in there.To keep it short: MyWOT got the Likert scale wrong.
Another reason why not to trust MyWOT…
If you look at it, the reason not to trust such a system become apparent. If you count in that you are also sharing your complete browsing history with MyWOT, you know that using such an “add-on” is anything but secure. Besides, where’s the privacy in that? WOT rates websites down for using a tracking cookie while at the same time, WOT is acting like a tracking tool itself. Does “spyware” ring a bell?
If you’re still unsure why not to trust MyWOT…
You need a third reason, don’t you? I knew it.
Ok, here it is. A direct copy of their website’s homepage description: “WOT is a community-based, free safe surfing tool for browsers that provides website ratings & reviews to help web users as they search, surf & shop online.”
Let me break that down for you:
1. WOT is a community-based, free safe surfing tool for browsers
2. provides website ratings & reviews to help web users as they search, surf & shop online.If you still dodn’t get it: “WOT is about TRUST and NOT ABOUT SAFETY!”
Everyone rates what he or she thinks about a website like in: “Do I think this website is trustworthy?”
Think about that for a while…
Now ask yourself some questions:
• Would you trust a website because a right-winged skinhead thinks it’s trustworthy? MyWOT can’t rule out that extreme right-winged or left-winged people using WOT to rate their own websites.
• Do you think you’re safe from visiting a pedophile’s online photo gallery just because you are using WOT? Don’t even start thinking that. If the pedophile finds enough friends that say his website is trustworthy, it will be rated “good”. That’s where WOT employees will give you their default reply “rate your own” which translates to “shut up and give us another rating because we live of those”.
• How much trust can they provide? Not much if you look at the percentage of domain names WOT has ratings for in comparison to the real number of domain names in use all over the internet. Remember that they only provide ratings about website WOT KNOWS, not the websites YOU VISIT. So you can throw the “trust” over board and spare yourself the burdon to install the add-on in the first place.The truth is…
The truth is that MyWOT is run by a company that has to make money to survive. I know what’s going to be replied so I’ll specify this a bit more: their “sponsors” of ventured capital expect profit!
Selling “trust seals” is only a small part of the profit. The “anonymous website history” you send them with every website you visit is the real capital!
The result of all of this…
No matter how “nice” the marketing replies and mywot wiki links read and no matter how often MyWOT employees state “you don’t understand the mywot system”, there facts are different.
There are people that DO understand the system. Those people also see the failures WOT has, being a Likert-based rating and reputation system with missing distortion control.
Today, you’ve met one of those people: me.
I can already imagine what Sami (WOT) would reply… probably something that reads like “we have implemented solutions to that but I can’t show them to you because our algorithm is secret”.
Based on this presumption, I’ll reply to that in advance:
Where is the reputation and trust MyWOT provides related to itself?
Don’t tell me to look at your own, manipulated scorecard. Besides that, I have NEVER seen ANY proof to anything WOT said. They failed providing it themselves and they failed to provide it upon request. All the secrecy may be cool when you’re working for a governmental intelligence agency, but when it comes to a reputation and trust system like MyWOT, such secrecy merely provides the nails to the coffin.
And if you need some last, wooden planks to close the coffin…
What about the lawsuit agains MyWOT? There was an oral hearing in Florida on August, 9th 2011 as Vesa (CEO of WOT) stated in the forum. Since then it has become awfully quite since. My best guess is that it’s not done yet. If there would have been any good news after several years of struggling with it, I am sure that WOT would have issues an according press release or at least they would have dropped a line in the forum or on their blog. Looks to me it’s not all “cake” in the WOT bakery.
On their homepage, they state that the WOT add-on has been downloaded around 25.000.000 times. Note that that’s “downloads”, not “active users”… they tend to “forget” to tell you emphasize the difference.
What they also forgot to explain is why that number said 12.000.000 last week and now shows 25.000.000 and counting. So after wasting precious 3 years to count those 12.000.000 downloads, they suddenly doubled their downloads in a week? I don’t think so…
Why I personally will never use WOT again and tell everyone to avoid it?
I guess it’s a “TRUST” thing.
tami September 27, 2011 at 3:33 pm-
Scammers, I knew it. I knew it from the day our site got bad ratings. I knew something was wrong and like you said. You cannot do anything to these well established members who are being paid by myWot to vote sites down.
Organized crime at its best over the internet.
No wonder 10 companies are suing their ass.
I hope they all rot in hell for what they have done. Their “anonymous” users are a bunch of lying assholes.
Facebook partner http://www.mywot.com is a finland company that attacks U.S. Based businesses with their mass rating tool that allows poor reviews against 100′s of us in 1 click. Not quite sure why the U.S. Attorney’s Office hasn’t initiated an investigation into mywot.com and their trade practices yet, but hopefully it will follow soon.
MyWot is being sued by 10 companies in Florida and I believe Microsoft, http://www.facebook.com, http://www.google.com/chrome, http://www.mozilla.org should immediately investigate even allowing their browser add on.
I’m still curious as to why anyone would have the need to complain about 100′s of companies at once, but that seems to be one of the issues pending in court. Who would need to post negative reviews against 100 companies at once? Obviously nobody, but that’s what http://www.mywot.com promotes. The more bashing the better is their motto.
When I think of http://www.mywot.com I see 2 crooks dressed up like cops with 10 trolls doing their dirty work.
It’s recommended everyone investigate mywot complaints before having any association with them.
tags: mywot.com facebook.com fraud sued Sami Tolvanen mass fraud scheme
WOT loses in court LOL
http://www.chrisroubis.com/category/mywot-com-loses-in-court/
This Website Should be the Real Web of Trust , thanks for compiling such an extensive amount of useful information and Helping to save people from WOT.
I run a genuine web business — and have even had the honor of being awarded the No 1 Internet Marketing Service by IMReportCard — yet since WOT have been involved with Facebook — if I post a link to my site — I get the ‘This Link May Not Be Safe’ message.
This is despite thousands of glowing reviews online about my services.
Also -- it would appear that I CAN have the security warning removed — if I purchase a WOT badge and place it on my site — for something like $300.
Surely this is just downright wrong -- it feels like extortion (“yeah we’ll give you a good rating for $300…”)
I have no problem with anyone wanting to protect someone — but I can’t help felling that WOT is like an online mafia — and Facebook may have scored an own goal with this alliance.
Beware of the mywot addon. It tracks and monitors every webpage you ever visit. You can’t even logout without disabling it. It offers no protection whatsoever.
MyWot claims to be a community of millions that provides a web of trust, however nothing could be further from the truth. In actuality, most of the ratings are coming from a small clique of 10 or so super users (mywot employees) who are apparently rating around 10,000 sites per day. This is easy to confirm by checking the comment and rating sections for any random selection of sites. The remainder of the ratings are coming from business owners trying to correct poor ratings and misinformation put on there by the employees of Mywot. Mywot is the internet’s version of a Ponsi scheme, it pulls in more and more unwilling users by this practice.
MyWot uses tautological arguments to rebut any criticisms by saying anyone who doesn’t like their service or criticizes it must be a scammer. Any site which speaks-up about their practices is automatically red-listed (flagged as being dangerous). Apparently, the mywot clique (there is no community) considers a wordpress blogger who criticises their site to be more dangerous to kids than the most prolific porn sites.
Mywot is one big, sorry sham.
Brilliant article! I’ve had some recent issues with myWOT with inaccurate and libellous comments recorded on my score card from clearly visitors that have never been to my web site! I’ve tried contacting their support department and they have flatly refused to correct the issue and instead their only answer is to encourage my friends join WOT and rate my site higher.
I pointed out to them that they are responsible for the content on their web site and I’m not here to do their marketing job for them.
I have also experienced having my non-specular ratings of ‘mywot’ ignored and my comments deleted because I dared to disagree that mywot was the best thing ever. I actually rated them as ‘unethical’ which is bad but its not good either. This was deleted by mywot for absolutely no reason other than I didn’t agree with them.
Look at the reviews he leaves everyone : http://www.mywot.com/en/user/1442827/comments
I see 4 full pages of reviews from today (as of now)! All of them negative! I positive comment ob=n page 5. I am contacting my lawyer as this is hurting my business. How do thousands of people visit our site everyday and trust us yet we are Orange in all but 1 category? Funny how my ratings keep going down randomly. Look at this : http://www.mywot.com/en/user/1442827/comments