Google asks Chrome users for help in spotting deceptive sites

Google this week asked for help in identifying suspicious websites, offering users of its Chrome browser an add-on that lets them rat out URLs.

The Suspicious Site Reporter, which can be added to desktop Chrome, places a new flag-style icon on the top bar of the browser. “By clicking the icon, you’re now able to report unsafe sites to Safe Browsing for further evaluation,” Emily Schechter, a Chrome product manager, wrote in a Tuesday post to a company blog.

Safe Browsing is the name of the technology used by Google’s search engine, Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari, and Android to steer users away from sites that host malicious or deceptive content. On the back end, Google uses robots to scan the web and build a list of websites that host malware, harmful downloads or deceptive ads and pages. Software developers can then plug into an API to integrate this list into their own applications, something rival browser makers have done for years.

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