From Techdirt: What's That Widget Doing To Your Visitors?.
It's become increasingly popular to stick various "widgets" on websites and blogs. These are tools or features provided by other providers, that can easily be placed on website with a little bit of javascript. One of the problems, though, is that you don't always know what these widgets are doing to your visitors. Of course, one of the most popular such widget is Google's AdSense code (which, yes, we use here as well). However, there were reports earlier this week that AdSense was prompting users to install some software for visitors using certain configurations. Google seems to have admitted that it was an accident that they've since fixed, but it's a good reminder that for sites that use many of these widgets, they potentially could be putting their visitors at risk without realizing it. Traditionally, people think of security as protecting their own computer, but perhaps site owners are going to start thinking of how to protect their visitors from security issues as well. It becomes tricky, because most people feel that certain sites that they visit are "safe," but it may be increasingly difficult to determine which sites are actually safe when you don't know who's providing all the various widgets -- or if those widgets have somehow been compromised.
