Individuals go to prison for hacking, especially if it's anything to do with copyright. Businesses definitely are given the benefit of the doubt.

The public lack a well-funded consumer advocacy organisation that can bribe, cajole or threaten police into investigating this kind of crime.

But why are businesses given the benefit of the doubt? Surely if crimes like these are core to their business, that business is a criminal organization, and its members should be locked up?

Could any criminal organization decide to incorporate and file taxes and get just a slap on the wrist and a fine for their drug trade, mugging, etc? Reminds me of HSBC's minor fine for laundering billions of drug dollars. Why do corporations get that kind of immunity?

Capitalism?

More generally, people have prejudices about what crime "looks like", which isn't an office, and there is a huge pro-business bias generally in the West based on the idea of "creating jobs".

I don't think that's a good answer; in general governments get even more latitude to screw up than businesses do.

I think it's just that groups with diffused responsibility get more latitude, because for a given act, who are you going to put in jail exactly? That turns out to be a hard question, especially when you consider not just the local consequences but the global ones. For instance, take a hard line "I'm putting the CEO/Secretary of X/Whatever the highest plausible person is in jail" stance and you just created an extraordinary incentive for pervasive, total micromanagement, and probably in the end worse results for society than even what we have now. It's a hard problem.

Interesting that you say "screw up", which implies error rather than malice. Maybe that's an important part of it that we look at intent of individuals and then label them "bad", whereas the intent of a business decision is harder to label?

I intend screw up here to represent both innocent error and deliberate malice. Teasing apart which is which in groups is hard, especially since it may well be both at the same time with different people in various roles.

It often gets hard to pinpoint who actually made the call. Once you start scrutinizing a company, it turns into endless finger-pointing. I agree with your point, someone should be punished for this, but implementation is hard.

Protip: If a site wants you to download an installer, or has its own installer for the software it provides, don't use it.

> Protip

That's the problem: We should not need to be "pro" to get software - even in an open world without walled gardens.

Almost all software comes with an installer. Might as well just not download software over the internet, which makes it impossible to do anything.

Sorry, I meant a site installer, like those random "download.com installer" software. Not the installer of the program itself.

Generally, if the installer is branded with the branding of the third-party you downloaded a program from, stay away.

Seems like intercepting secure communications with a bank would be a criminal activity and those responsible would be treated as such.

You are probably agreeing to it by accepting an EULA?

Why are you even using CNET instead of the original website of any software to get the installer?

Recently I couldn't find an installer on the official site of something I needed. Googling for one lead me to CNET.

Which raises the next obvious question - why isn't Google blacklisting these sites yet?

Well in Google's case it's easy, wouldn't want to upset that ad income. Firefox though absolutely should be blocking/warning of malware for sites like this. Firefox is more spin than substance these days, sadly.

But these are companies overwriting Google's ads with their own. Sounds like Google is directly hurt by them. Maybe blacklisting would get them charged with anticompetitive behaviour? (That would be really funny in a horrifying way if that happened.)

Why do you support private companies policing the internet? I'd rather be given the chance to decide what's good or bad for me by myself, instead of having someone else doing this proactively.

A warning would be welcomed, but nothing more.

Websites are still accessible if Google delists them.

That's akin to saying if I tore up the road leading to your house, your house is still accessible. You're not wrong, but you can't deny the power that Google has when it comes to access to websites. Furthermore, if Google started delisting some websites, you probably wouldn't even notice, which makes this all the scarier. There's a solution to be found that doesn't involve Google acting as some kind of pseudo-internet police.

At the same time, Google has a responsibility to their users. Their search engine is a list of what are likely to be the best results. If a website regularly spreads malware, is it in the best interest of Google's reputation to link to it?

Because Download.com doesn't actually give the user malware so Google Legal sees it differently than you.

Also, why do you want Google deciding who is blacklisted?