Website content regulation

1. A method of facilitating a scanning of web pages for suspect and/or malicious hyperlinks and comprising:

receiving at a content hosting website, user generated content;

generating a web page or web pages containing said content; and

including in the web page source code, a detection code segment or a link from which a detection code segment is downloaded,

said detection code segment being executable by a web browser or web browser plug-in to scan the web page(s), or cause the web page(s) to be scanned, for suspect and/or malicious links.

2. A method according to claim 1 , wherein said web page source code is HTML or WML source code.

3. A method according to claim 1 , wherein said detection code segment comprises a scripting language that can be interpreted by the web browser or web browser plug-in.

4. A method according to claim 1 and comprising receiving and updating said detection code segment from a third party website.

5. A method according to claim 1 and comprising incorporating said detection code segment into the source code of a web page template and using the template to generate said web page(s) containing the received user generated content.

6. A computer comprising a processor and a memory arranged in use to be coupled to the Internet and being configured to:

receive user generated content submitted over the Internet;

generate a web page or web pages containing said content; and

include in the web page source code, a detection code segment or a link from which a detection code segment is downloaded,

said detection code segment being executable by a web browser or web browser plug in to scan the web page(s), or cause the web page(s) to be scanned, for suspect and/or malicious links.

7. A method of identifying suspect and/or malicious hyperlinks in a web page downloaded to a client terminal, the method comprising:

at the client terminal, identifying hyperlinks within the web page source code;

inspecting a database of suspect and/or malicious URLs to determine whether any identified hyperlinks contain suspect and/or malicious URLs; and

if it is determined that an identified hyperlink does contain a suspect and/or malicious URLs, modifying the webpage in accordance with a defined policy;

wherein the web page source code contains a detection code segment and the client terminal executes the code segment to cause the recited steps to be performed.

8. A method according to claim 7 and comprising downloading the detection code segment to the client terminal from a URL identified in the web page source code.

9. A method according to claim 7 and comprising executing the detection code segment within a web browser or web browser plug-in.

10. A method according to claim 7 , the recited steps being performed by one of a browser extension or Browser Object Helper.

11. A method according to any one of claim 7 , the recited steps being performed prior to the web page being displayed at the client terminal.

12. A method according to claim 7 , said step of inspecting a database comprising sending URLs of any identified hyperlinks to a remote verification resource, and receiving back from the resource, at the client terminal, an indication of whether or not any identified hyperlinks contain suspect and/or malicious URLs.

13. A method according to claim 7 , said step of inspecting a database comprising inspecting a database maintained locally at the client terminal.

14. A method according to claim 7 , said step of inspecting a database causing a safety rating to be returned for identified suspect and/or malicious links.

15. A method according to claim 14 , said step of modifying the webpage in accordance with a defined policy comprising modifying the webpage in dependence upon the returned safety rating(s).

16. A method according to claim 7 , said step of modifying the webpage comprising one or more of: deleting or inactivating a hyperlink, replacing the hyperlink with a predefined hyperlink, adding a comment to a hyperlink, and modifying a hyperlink to link initially to a safety warning.

17. A method according to claim 7 and comprising, upon detection of a suspect and/or malicious link at the client terminal, sending an alert identifying the link to the website from which the web page(s) containing the link was downloaded.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program which when run on a computer, causes the computer to:

identify hyperlinks within a web page source code;

extract from the web page source code a detection code segment or a link from which a detection code segment can be downloaded;

inspect a database of suspect and/or malicious URLs to determine whether any identified hyperlinks contain suspect and/or malicious URLs; and

if it is determined that an identified hyperlink does contain a suspect and/or malicious URLs, to modify the webpage in accordance with a defined policy;

wherein the computer is arranged to execute the detection code segment to perform the above recited steps.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program which when run on a computer, causes the computer to:

receive user generated content, to generate a web page or web pages containing said content, and to include in the web page source code, a detection code segment or a link from which a detection code segment can be downloaded, said detection code segment being executable by a web browser or web browser plug-in to scan the web page(s), or cause the web page(s) to be scanned, for suspect and/or malicious links.