Jackson death prompts malware alert at Google

As reports began to circulate, first of Jackson's hospitalization, then of his death, some people searching for news on Google found themselves looking at a page that said: "We're sorry, but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application."

The page asked users to enter a Captcha code in order to continue their searches.

"When you get huge volumes of searches, an interstitial page comes up to make sure we aren't coming under attack," a spokesman for the company told ZDNet UK on Friday. "The volumes searching for Michael Jackson during the night were such that a page did come up, and it slowed things down for a short period."

Asked how the volume of searches compared with other breaking-news events, Google's spokesman described the spike as "volcanic" — the term used in the Google Trends labs project to define the highest level of search volumes.

"This is one of the biggest [spikes] we've seen in recent times," the spokesman said.

Google malware alert over Michael Jackson's death: