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| Industry | Internet safety |
|---|---|
| Founded | July 2006 |
| Headquarters | Helsinki, Finland |
| Website | www.mywot.com |
WOT Services, Ltd is a Finnish company that runs the partly crowdsourced Internet website reputation rating tool Web of Trust (WOT). The installed WOT browser add-on shows its users the reputations of websites, which are calculated through a combination of user ratings and data from other sources.
History
WOT was founded in 2006 by Sami Tolvanen and Timo Ala-Kleemola, who wrote the WOT software as post-graduates at the University of Technology in Tampere, Finland. They launched the service officially in 2007, with serial entrepreneur and angel investor Esa Suurio as CEO. In November 2009 Suurio moved on to his next endeavor and was succeeded by Vesa Perälä.
The company has partnered with Facebook, hpHosts, LegitScript, Mail.ru, Panda Security, Phishtank and TRUSTe.
WOT's services
The WOT browser add-on does two things: (1) it sends user ratings to the WOT site, and (2) it displays the computed results via color-coded icons in the user's browser tool-bar and next to external links on the pages of leading search engines, email services and social network sites. The add-on source code is public.
The program software at WOT headquarters is not public. According to the company information it is designed to compute the measure of trust the rating users have in websites, enhanced with data from a number of third-party sources. The user rating system is meritocratic; the weight of ratings are algorithmically calculated for each user individually.
To generate revenue WOT licenses the use of its reputation database to other businesses, and sells "trust seals" and "reputation badges" to websites that are already rated 'good' or 'excellent'.
Reviews
The rating tool has received favorable reviews in the press, sometimes with mildly critical remarks. Some people vent more harsh criticism, saying the system is too susceptible to faulty results caused by targeted, malicious efforts of biased users. The company claims the system is extremely difficult to abuse and says that attempts usually get noticed.
Lawsuit
On December 7, 2010, ten companies all associated to Ayman El-Difrawi aka Alec Difrawi filed a lawsuit against WOT Services for defamation, violating rights, conspiracy and manipulating algorithms, among other claims, demanding WOT to remove ratings and comments for their numerous websites. On December 8, 2011, the case was dismissed with prejudice.
References
- "Web of Trust Wiki: How WOT works". Retrieved 2010-10-15.
- "Web of Trust Wiki: Trusted Sources". Retrieved 2010-10-15.
- Rubenking, Neil J. "PC Magazine - Web of Trust Review and Rating". Retrieved 17 May 2011.
- "Gizmo's freeware - Best Free Internet Safety Check". 6 May 2011. Retrieved 17 May 2011.
- "Mashable - Web of Trust is the Robert De Niro of Reputation Sites". Retrieved 4 December 2007.
- "Mozilla - Reviews by Firefox users". Retrieved 17 December 2011.
- "WOT blog - Safe Surfing Tool Web of Trust Sued over Community Warnings". Retrieved 22 December 2011.
- Orange County court records search Case No. 2010-CA-022724-O, Career Network, Inc. et al v. WOT Services, Ltd. et al
- "ArcticStartup - WOT Wins Lawsuit In The US". Retrieved 22 December 2011.