Yahoo wants your Web searching to be safe. Yahoo has partnered with McAfee to utilize McAfee's SiteAdvisor technology in Yahoo searches to keep Web surfers from visiting would-be harmful sites. In a press release from earlier today, Yahoo stated:
"Yahoo!, Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) and McAfee, Inc. (NYSE:MFE) today announced a partnership to deliver a safer Web search experience through Yahoo! Search. Launching in beta today, the new SearchScan feature by Yahoo! Search, powered by the award-winning McAfee(R) SiteAdvisor(R) technology, provides always-on alerts to users for "risky" sites with security concerns such as spyware, adware and other malicious software that can infect and damage a user's PC. SearchScan also identifies sites that have shown bad email practices, flooding user in-boxes with spammy emails."
Potentially risky sites are flagged with a warning in search results. Sites that are deemed to be malicious won't even appear in search results at all. Yahoo is calling the current rollout of the technology a "beta"--during the beta period not all of McAfee's SiteAdvisor ratings will be used.