Google To Give Unsecure Websites a Scarlet Letter

Google will soon publicly use the Google Chrome browser to give unsecure websites a Scarlet Letter. When visitors use Chrome to visit an unsecure website, it will be very clear that the site is unsecure. The site will be marked with a red X mark whereas a secure website will show a lock symbol.

The future. More like this coming down the pike. #enigma2016 pic.twitter.com/7tWt08mQAd

— Chris Palmer (@fugueish) January 26, 2016

According to Vice.com, today “during a presentation at the Usenix Enigma security conference in San Francisco, Google pushed the proposal out in the open with much more fanfare, and gave a sneak peek of how it’s going to look. (You can see the little red “x” on the padlock in the URL bar.)”.

Chris Palmer posted this Tweet on Twitter showing the new “Scarlet Letter” that will be given to unsecure websites soon.

If this isn’t another reason why you need to move your own website to HTTPs soon and encourage your clients’ sites to move to HTTPs, I don’t know what is. As you know, ever since Google announced that HTTPs is a search engine ranking factor, I moved this site to HTTPs and have never regretted it. Now I’m very happy I did move.

Check out my checklist for moving to HTTPs. Oh, and by the way, if you still have a question about why Google is continuing to get sites to move, it’s not just because of web security. This is the reason why they keep pushing HTTPs.