Google is sorry
I do a lot of research on the web using Google. Starting early last week I started getting these Google error messages:

The search term was “gutenberg” as in Gutenberg Bible.

This is happening 5-10 times a day. I enter the captcha and I’m on my way. But it is irritating.

What is going on?
The downside of “free” is non-existent customer service. I’ve written to Google’s comment address asking about this and, of course, no response.

I have seen reports that other people are experiencing this problem, so it isn’t just me. I’m running Mac OS 10.5.1 and as near as I can tell I am virus free. I even checked for the codec Trojan and it isn’t there.

There is a Windows XP machine on the home network, which has the virus protection our local Windows guru recommends. It is a business system and doesn’t get out much anyway.

The StorageMojo take
My sense is that the boffins in Mt. View tweaked something last week that started this. What makes a human-generated query look like a virus? Or a DoS attack? I’m stumped.

Comments and/or solutions welcome. Any thoughts?

Update: Ms. Mojo ran the virus/spyware/whatever software on her Windows machine and it located 17 suspicious files. Haven’t gotten the message since. Since Ms. Mojo is all business it gives me a new appreciation for just how vulnerable XP really is. Thanks to all who wrote in with suggestions.