Search Drive are incorrectly flagging links to Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) research papers and websites as malware.
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The issue was first reported by researcher Maximilian Golla.
The non-profit Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. As of 2019, ACM members include nearly 100,000 students and professionals involved in the computing.
Researcher Maximilian Golla, PhD, of the Max Planck Society, was disappointed when he saw one of his Google Docs files restricted by Google.
The file, according to Golla, contained links to ACM research papers, but was flagged as “violating” Google’s Terms of Service according to a screenshot shared by the researcher.
But apart from Google Drive, Google Search also presents the same issue, Golla points out.
Google Search results for the ACM website, ACM Digital Library research papers, and contact pages also treat links to ACM domains as malicious.
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This issue essentially blocks any and all traffic to ACM domains from Google Search results. ACM visitors will have to manually copy and paste the link into their browser's address bar.
These warnings are typically displayed by Google to visitors who may accidentally navigate to compromised websites or domains hosting adware, MageCart scripts, or other types of malware. So far, there is no indication that ACM domains have been compromised or are serving malware.
“For detailed information about the issues we found, visit the Google Safe Browsing diagnostic page for this site,” Google’s warning message advises.
While the blocking of ACM links in Search and Google Drive seems irregular, this is not the first time that Google Drive has mistakenly flagged websites for violating its Terms of Service when none exist.
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In January, Google Drive restricted nearly empty files for “copyright infringement.” These files contained no data other than certain numbers or a single digit, such as “1.”
Google Drive documents containing phishing links, even for personal research purposes, have also been automatically flagged as violating terms and have had their sharing capabilities restricted.
