Dont Trust a Website's Seal

Don't Trust a Website's Seal of Approval

 

Chances are you've come across "seals of approval" on web sites at some point in your web browsing life. Whether it's a Better Business Bureau seal, a Norton Secured Seal, or the TRUSTe Certified seal, they seem like a good thing to watch out for. How-To Geek points out how wrong that is.

Pretty much any seal you see on a site is just a JPG and doesn't require any work to put it there:

These badges - technically called "trust seals" - are just images. Anyone could copy and paste these images and put them on any software download page. Really, we can't stress this enough. Although a seal of approval might look fancy and official, it's no different from a statement written out in text. If you saw a scammy-looking software download page that said, "This software was certified virus-free by Symantec!", would you blindly trust it? Of course not! Of course they'd say that - anyone can write that.

If you want to actually verify the claim in a seal, you'll have to head over to the seal's web site and research the company in question. Otherwise, those claims mean absolutely nothing. If you've been using a computer for a long time you've probably already figured this out, but it's a good tip to add to you tech support kit. Head over to How-To Geek for some more tips on reading through those seals of approval.