(UPDATE, March 22: After hours on the phone and hours in text chat with Trend Micro, this is finally fixed… but not cleared up. They have NO idea what caused it. They don’t even know that it’s impossible for wordpress.COM sites to have malicious code or even have java on them. How are these people a major malware/spyware company?
I’m going to do this more formally at the site today, but I want to thank all of you that helped, made noise, tweeted, emailed, nagged, or otherwise made Trend Micro aware that they can’t get away with this. I think it really surprised them. It certainly made them take me a lot more seriously.
The silver lining with all of this is that this is just one more example of my readers showing me what awesome, caring people you all are.
THANK YOU.)
(UPDATE, March 21: Trend Micro has “reclassified” Lovecraft eZine as safe… at THEIR site. THIS DOES NOT FIX THE PROBLEM, because there is NO change on the error message when clicking from Facebook to Lovecraft eZine, which is what the problem really is. So, despite what they tell you, it is NOT fixed.)
Dear Lovecraft eZine readers: I need your help. I badly need your help. And no, I’m not asking for money.
I am very frustrated. That’s saying a lot, because I’m usually a calm person. Here is why:
For the past week or so, if someone tries to click a link from Facebook to Lovecraft eZine, they get the following message:
The link you are trying to visit has been classified as potentially abusive by a Facebook partner. Trend Micro: This website was classified as abusive. This warning is provided in collaboration with Trend Micro.
First of all, there cannot be malicious software at Lovecraft eZine. Why? Because I host it at WordPress.COM. Note the dot com in caps, because there’s a difference between WordPress.COM and WordPress.ORG. One of the reasons why I host Lovecraft eZine at WordPress.COM is because you CAN’T put your own code there; you CAN’T even use Java.
If you still aren’t convinced, click here to check Lovecraft eZine at Sucuri SiteCheck, a free malware scanner. It classifies Lovecraft eZine as “clean” in every way.
Obviously, Trend Micro has some glitches. OK, mistakes happen. I can accept that. But what is unacceptable is that I have repeatedly contacted Trend Micro, and they don’t reply. At all. And, of course, the “Lovecraft eZine is malicious” report still stands.
So in the meantime, anyone who tried to click on a link from Facebook to Lovecraft eZine will receive a very scary message — and of course, most people will not click the “ignore this warning” link.
This hurts my traffic. This hurts my income (such as it is). Worst of all, this damages Lovecraft eZine‘s reputation.
I really need your help. I really need everyone reading these words to contact Trend Micro and let them know that you frequent this website and that there is nothing malicious, illegal, or otherwise negative going on. (And no spam — everyone who signs up for email notifications at this website is using the WordPress.com “opt-in”, and they can unsubscribe any time they want.)
Please, please do the following:
- Click here to “re-classify” Lovecraft eZine as a safe site. I’ve already done this three times, with no luck, but maybe if hundreds of people do it, they will pay attention. Type in “www.lovecraftzine.com” into their box at that page, then click CHECK NOW and follow the instructions.
- Click here to send Trend Micro a message at their Facebook page. Just click MESSAGE on the right side of the page. Please let them know that they are damaging a good website’s reputation, and costing me traffic, every day that this continues.
- Post the following text on your Twitter account: @TrendMicro is falsely reporting the Lovecraft eZine website as malicious, without a shred of proof. Please RT @misanthropemike
- Go to their community forum (malware section) and post about this. You may have to “log in with Facebook” to post. I wish I had an email address for them, but of course they don’t provide one anywhere at their website that I’ve been able to find.
- UPDATE: An awesome Lovecraft eZine reader provided the top guy’s email address: steve_chang@trendmicro.com . Please let Steve Chang know that his company is damaging a good website’s reputation, and costing me traffic, every day that this continues.
And, if you have the time:
- Call Trend Micro at (408) 257-1500.
- Start a live chat with Trend Micro.
Thanks, everyone. I really need as many people as possible to do the above. Obviously, this is the only way to get Trend Micro’s attention.
Mike Davis
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The Lovecraft eZine 
did the safety check with Treng Micro – listed as safe. Will tweet if still necessary. Am furious that this happened at all!
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Did #’s 1 & 3; hope it helps. It did show safe when I did #1 (giggle) though.
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Done. And on the plus side for me, I hadn’t heard of this site before, so just bought the megapack on Amazon to try out the magazine 🙂
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Strange, I am not getting it on either Chrome or IE. I searched for the eZine on Facebook (I have never accessed it there before) and it came right up clean. This is the link I came up with: https://www.facebook.com/LovecraftZine?fref=ts
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I got this a bit ago:
Trend Micro 1:06pm Mar 21
Hi Neal, we have confirmed that Facebook has removed the warning. Once you clear your browser’s cache, you should be able to access the site again without a security warning.
We win.
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Well, except that it actually IS still showing the warning on Facebook.
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*shrug* I don’t know what to tell ya. At a certain point it seems like this would be libel.
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Sent the comments to TrendMicro facebook page. Link from facebook to http://www.lovecraftzine.com works fine for me. maybe they have ironed it out.
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I just got the same reply. Hopefully this means things are moving in the right direction. “Hi Jordan, a quick update on this for you: The site had been reclassified in our system, and we have requested Facebook refresh their cache to expedite the removal of the warning. We’ll try to notify when we confirm its removal. Thank you”
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Yeah, I just got the same message:
“Hi Lena, we have updated the classification of this site in our system and have requested Facebook refresh their cache to expedite removal of the warning. We will try to notify when we confirm its removal.”
That’s wonderful! I’m so glad they’re working on it. 🙂
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Done! Hope it helps.
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I got a reply on FB where they said they are trying to get FB to refresh their side of the system ASAP. I am gonna consider this a win, unless FB doesn’t fix their side.
I think we may have frightened them. 😉
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On it.
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As of today, the Trend Micro site has the eZine listed as “Safe!” with a big green checkmark 🙂
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Here’s the response I got from their FB page:
Hi Rebecca, thanks for reaching out. This site has been recently reclassified in our system, and it may take some time for the change to propagate to partner sites (such as Facebook). Please allow a little time for this change and try again later. Thank you.
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Mike, I came in through FB without any problems or messages!
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Mike;
I forwarded the TrendMicro e-mail to your e-mail.
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Try this Mike;
Trend Micro Technical Support [GCC_CONSRECEIVE@support.trendmicro.com]
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If it’s flagged as “abusive,” I wonder if it’s not a malware concern at all, but rather someone out there taking offense at some content? (I can’t imagine *how*, but the wording seems to suggest that?)
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That was my thought, that someone at Trend Micro complained to Facebook or flagged a Lovecraft eZine post and that caused Facebook to classify it that way. Hopefully this’ll be cleared up soon!
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SUCCESS! Just tried clicking your link a new web browser, and was conducted from Facebook to Lovecraft eZine with nary a complaint. Way to go, people!
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Not on my end, unfortunately.
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Just e-mailed TrendMicro about Facebook issue. Here’s the response:
Dear Kevin,
This is Ryan Neil once again from Trend Micro Consumer Support.
Thank you for your reply and I understand that the URL is still blocked if accessed from Facebook. Allow me to continue assisting you with this matter.
I already forwarded this case to our Level 2 Engineers and they are working on it. I’ll email you the updates as soon as we have one.
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Thank you, Kevin. Do you have an email for Ryan? I was on text chat with him for 90 minutes this morning. He promised me that a supervisor would call me within 15 minutes of exiting the chat. Of course, 45 minutes later, she has not called.
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Just received this:
Trend Micro
Hi Ian, the site has been reclassified in our system, though it may take some time for the change to be reflected on outside sites (such as Facebook). Please clear your cache and check again shortly. Thank you.
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I sent an email to the email given telling them the situation was ridiculous, because it outright is.
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Tried sending a FB message, but it freezes up when I try. I did send the E-mail.
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Went and checked and got the same result as it saying your site is safe.
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Maybe we need to point out that distinction to TrendMicro? Or perhaps it’s Facebook.
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Not if you click from Facebook to Lovecraft eZine. They may now have it “classified” as safe, but that does nothing, apparently, because it still shows the malicious error message when you try to click from FB to LE.
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I just clicked through from Facebook and came straight here, no warning, no problem. *shrug* Maybe because I have the site bookmarked? Dunno. Anyway, looks like we’re making them run, so hopefully it’ll be fixed soon!
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Closed out my browser and removed all temp files. Re-opened browser and checked classification and it now says safe.
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Oddly, their Site Safety Center classifies it as safe, but the warning is still in place on Facebook (i’ve messaged them about this discrepancy).
Could just be the mention of Lovecraft causing confusion – an inversion of this once occurred to a college friend who went into a shop called Lovecraft expecting cosmic horror fiction and discovered it sold something quite different…
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Looks like it’s all set now — I just went to the “Check Now” page and the response that comes up is “SAFE: The latest tests indicate that this URL contains no malicious software and shows no signs of fraud.” Good job, guys!!! 🙂
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Knowing somewhat how these applications work, I have a suspicion that all of wordpress.com is getting flagged, or at least a subset. Has anyone checked on this?
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Steve,
Just sent the following…
Steve,
There’s nothing malicious, harmful, or spammy about the Lovecraft Ezine website. I’ve never had a problem with it, and as the founder and leader of the Cthulhu Cult, I’m forced to wonder if this flagging isn’t religious intolerance/persecution. Just because some Lovecraft enthusiasts aren’t Christian, doesn’t mean our media outlets should be blocked on FB.
Thanks for your time,
Venger As’Nas Satanis
Ipsissimus
Cult of Cthulhu
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Looks like they’ve fixed it already! Cheers!
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Sam — sorry, they haven’t. Try it from a fresh browser… it’s still showing abusive on my end.
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Why do I think that some zealous individual reacted to the word “Lovecraft,” believing it to refer to sex (this actually happened in a conversation I had once)
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I also received that quick Facemail reply, as well as a response to my tweet: “@graphickal Thank you for reaching out. We have heard the concern regarding this site and analysts are reviewing it now.” It came about 30 minutes after I sent the original tweet, so hopefully that means it was not some kind of auto-response. The pressure is on!
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Done.
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I would recommend that people DON’T click the trendmicro ‘reclassify’ link, but instead cut and paste it into the browser. If they look at referrer logs, they may ignore anything that comes from here for a reclassify of here; It’s something I would do implementing this to avoid scripts on page from reclassifying.
I looked at the HTML and there’s nothing suspicious there, so it’s not like you’ve been compromised. Chrome is suggesting changes to optimize, but that’s it. All hits to outside sources look perfectly legit.
They are classifying as “Seen in Spam” as well as malware. I reclassified as “Art”, since there was no literature option.
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and I went to the reclassify link on their site safety page, and got this IMMEDIATE response from a FB message:
Thank you for contacting us about your concern that this site is incorrectly identified as being malicious. Our analysts are reviewing the site now for reclassification consideration.
In the future, if you believe a site is misclassified, you can report it directly to our analysts at our Site Safety Center (http://global.sitesafety.trendmicro.com/) – enter the site in the “Is it safe” text box. That will show you the current categorization of that site. If you feel the categorization is incorrect, please click on the “Reclassify Request” link and fill out our reclassification form. Our analysts will review your request and make changes in accordance with our safety criteria.
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Thanks, Ann. I’ve been doing that for over a week now, though. If they had actually responded to it, I would not have had to resort to asking Lovecraft eZine readers to make all this noise.
I really, really appreciate you and everyone helping me with this. 🙂
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Just to follow up. After sending a verification e-mail back to TrendMicro so that they know I’m the person who made the re-class request through their chat, I had to send a screen shot of this home page and the page from TrendMicro that shows the current classification. So, I guess. at least someone is listening and following up on their end.
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Did the same brother, I requested reclassification and an update to procedures.
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Requested reclassification, Facemailed ’em, and tweeted. Sorry you have to deal with this, Mike!
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Did the first three, but have to run now. I’ll check back later to see how it’s going. Good luck.
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I also tweeted and contacted Trend Micro. This is really upsetting. I love this site.
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Went through the reclassification process (don’t forget to click the URL in their “confirmation” email!) and messaged them on Facebook.
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Done. I notice on their facebook page they have blocked at least one other wordpress.com site. It’s mentioned in a comment on a post where another big website accuses them of anti-semetism!
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Web of Trust says it’s kosher except for ‘Child Safety’, Guessing for the Scary content. http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/lovecraftzine.com?utm_source=addon&utm_content=rw-viewsc
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clicked on the Recreation/hobbies option as opposed to occult as i worry a godbothering bible basher may be working there & be responsible for this gosa
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steve_chang@trendmicro.com <– the chairman, forget the monkeys, go straight to the organ grinder 😉
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steve_chang@trendmicro.com <– the chairman, go straight to the organ grinder 😉
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On it, brother.
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Done.
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Done, and done.
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I went through step #1 as requested. I hope enough people do this, because this is utter stupidity on their part
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Shared, shared, and shared!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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