Another day, another scam. But I must admit that this one caught me by surprise.
The makers of the popular “Web of Trust” browser extension (aka WOT) have been caught collecting and selling sensitive user information to third party companies.
And when I say the information being sold is sensitive, well…check it out for yourself:
- Account name
- Mailing address
- Travel plans
- Illnesses
- Sexual preference
- Drug consumption
- Confidential company information
- Ongoing police investigations
- Browser surfing activity including all sites visited
As you can see, using the WOT extension on your Firefox or Chrome browser could easily spread some of the most private details of your personal life around the Internet.
This scam is just dripping with sad irony since the Web of Trust extension is supposed to make using the Internet safer.
The extension has been downloaded over 140 million times so it’s in very wide use, but it has now been removed from both the Firefox Add-On Repository and the Chrome Web Store.
Bottom line: If you have the Web of Trust (WOT) extension installed on your browser I recommend that you remove it immediately.
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