So I will start by saying…can you believe it? McAfee actually got the message, and I won’t be so egotistical to believe that it was because of my post but because of all the merchants who actually called into McAfee and either canceled their subscription or threatened to. I just want to say Well Done Merchants!!!! Way to stand up for your well paid for traffic 
For those of you first visiting my blog, you may wonder what all this is about, how my links don’t really make any sense, well my good friend Michael Roebuck experienced the same thing and here is an excerpt of an email I received from him yesterday that may shed some light for you.
Cresta,
I’d love to say my blog post made McAfee take action, but I think I must bow down to you. Looks like McAfee Secure removed the link to shopping. You don’t happen to have an old screen shot do you? I didn’t even think of taking one.
My updates, with screen shots this time. I can monitor changes with screen shots now.
http://www.michaelroebuck.com/blog/index.html
Michael Roebuck
All Web Promotion, Inc.
“Providing search engine marketing and Yahoo! store website design services”
So low and behold I went and checked it out and sure enough the link is gone. In answer to Michael’s question, yes I did take screen shots! See below.
 Merchants Site |
 Old McAfee Seal with Attention Shoppers and link to shopping portal |
 McAfee Shopping portal that consumers were being directed to when either 2 links in the previous screen were clicked on. |
Now the real question lies in now that McAfee has stopped redirecting merchants well paid for traffic to their shopping portal KIND OF, I say KIND OF because now if you click on the merchants URL in the cert you go to this page http://www.mcafeesecure.com/us/mcafee-certified-sites.jsp
And as you can see smack dab eye level is a box directing your visitors to their shopping portal. Now call me crazy but I find it somewhat deceptive to the consumer as well as the merchant when the link that takes you to the directory says About www.gothamcityonline.com: Yet after clicking on the link you don’t read or see anything about gothamcityonline??????
Here is a letter that a merchant received from McAfee when he contacted them about what they were doing.
Hello *
Yes, you are absolutely correct. When the certification mark is clicked, as with our former Hacker Safe certification, a window comes up that describes the certification. There are two options from that window “merchants” and “consumers”. When a consumer clicks on “consumer”, they are redirected to our McAfee Secure Shopping Portal. McAfee recognizes that the redirection from the certification mark to our McAfee Secure shopping portal is not something that is good for our clients. It is in the queue to be corrected. This could happen tonight or in a few weeks. Once this is corrected, corporate will notify us and in turn I will immediately notify you. We are working to resolve this in a timely fashion.
Thanks for sharing this concern with me. I will be in communication as I learn more. Please let me know if there are any other questions or concerns.
We look forward to earning your business.
Best Wishes
*Names withheld for privacy…
This is the part that truly concerns me. “McAfee recognizes that the redirection from the certification mark to our McAfee Secure shopping portal is not something that is good for our clients.
McAfee is a multimillion dollar company and in my opinion they should not be testing their services at the expense of the merchants who are their paying customers. While I appreciate them admitting that the current functionality is not in the best interest of the merchant it further underscores my concern that the new McAfee Secure is not the old Hacker Safe.
OK – a quick aside. As many of you know, I live in New York City and the changes by McAfee remind me a bit of a recent phenomenon in Manhattan real estate. Investors have been buying buildings that have a lot of rent controlled tenants in them, which historically they have avoided because those tenants do not move very often and they pay well below market rates. The new twist is that the investors buy the building and then try to evict as many tenants as possible with costly legal challenges in hopes that they can convert the unit into a market rate dwelling. Basically, they’re trying to work creative angles to improve their ROI.
I truly hope, for the many merchants who are still using McAfee Secure, this is not the mentality that is driving McAfee – “Let’s see how many places we can squeeze from extra revenue from.” As a security company, their judgment is held to a higher standard and running PPC shopping portals (OK, I’m not sure if the portal is pay-per-click but I wouldn’t be surprised) and cutting deals with Yahoo to influence search results by displaying warnings next to organic search traffic (not ppc traffic mind you, because that would discourage merchants from spending ppc dollars) is not what merchants are paying a security company for.
So they have acknoweledged that sending your paid for traffic to their shopping portal was not in the best interest of their customers and if they truly believe that…..I don’t know about you but if when I make a mistake with one of my customers I truly try to make it up to them 
refunds anyone?!
With all the marketing dollars that McAfee has why don’t they just market their shopping portal or at the very least have the about Gotham city or any other merchant really take you to a page about the merchant or to their items that they are selling??? Why try to direct traffic away from the same merchant that is paying them, and paying them well for their service. McAfee is a security company right??? Don’t get me wrong the success behind Hacker Safe was their ability to market the security to the consumer and the merchant. That is truly what set them apart and helped them to grow so quickly. I remember a time when the link to that directory was quite valuable. It was a page rank 8, yes, you heard me right-a page rank 8. Now it’s a page rank 1. If that doesn’t say how wrong it is I don’t know what does.
I say to McAfee and it is my suggestion that every other merchant say to McAfee to take the 3 boxes off of the directory if they insist on directing consumers to that page. Some of you may be wondering, how many people really click on that seal, is it really hurting us? The answer is Yes it is hurting you! I happen to know for a fact that when I was there the click through rate of the seal was extremely high!!! That is where all of our requests for information as well as isitsafe requests came from.
So for those of you that are truly looking for the essential eCommerce Security package it is finally available. I have special pricing but I must keep it private due to channel conflict. If you would like more information please email me at cresta.pillsbury@gmail.com and I will be happy to assist you.
Just so you all know, this will probably be my last post on McAfee…I have so much other valuable content to bring to you. My time and your time are far to valuable, let’s move on and start improving your business.
Well, that is enough for today. I welcome your comments and feedback. Have a terrific day and Happy eCommerce!!!!
Best Regards,
Cresta
That part of the McAfee’s response to a merchant’s inquiry where they take responsibility for something that shouldn’t be happening actually sounds very appropriate to me. The time estimate for rolling out the fix is quite realistic as well. There is quite a bureaucratic process of review, oversight and scheduling for rolling out fixes in a large company. I deal with it myself and have been frustrated trying to get even copy fixes out ASAP. But that’s just the way it is.
I really am saddened that this response to one merchant wasn’t also posted as a comment to the many readers here. Apparently McAfee does not have anyone participating in the social media realm. That’s really a mistake on their part since you have provided them a huge opportunity to step up, take responsibility and announce the upcoming remedies without having to do it piecemeal via their support staff. In return they may pick up some additional market feedback so that their fix better meets the needs of the market.
I have seen people from McAfee browsing my online content elsewhere and I can only assume it’s because I commented on your initial post. So we know they are monitoring. The next step for them is participation. Com’on McAfee. Join and contribute to the conversation.
Hi Cresta,
I met you in Orlando in Feb ‘06 at one of the Stomper conferences and that was when we first signed up with Hackersafe. Luckily our renewal with McAffee was up this month so your posts could not have come at a better time. We were also concerned with some of the things we saw going on with McAfee (although the things we were aware of were apparently just the tip of the iceberg), so it was perfect timing to come across your blog just as we were considering our renewal. We switched over to ControlScan last week and have been quite impressed so far with their level of support. We made sure they knew who convinced us to switch , so hopefully they are going to send you some kind of “bonus” for all of the new business you are sending their way!
Just wanted to say thank you for keeping us informed, its such a shame what McAfee has done to the Hackersafe “name” and how much has gone down hill since they took over. Then again, I’m not all that surprised considering the worst decision they made was in not keeping their best shot at continued success employed there!
Hacker Safe, Hacker Safe, Hacker Safe,…
Even its McAfee Site Advisor is found to be best working for secure anti free virus , THAT’S REALLY Great nae! Check out its new downloads now and you all will be glad at its working. Thank you.