A bit too upbeat?
"... researchers have shown that issuers of common good webkeeping seals of approval sometimes miss basic flaws, happily certify phishing sites and inadvertently function as a hackers' black book of vulnerable sites."
So, less "beware" and more "worse than utterly useless" then.
I've always taken these as a bit of rather thin web whitewash, assuming they probably say less than nothing about the actual security or trustworthiness of a site, but rather a lot about the mindset of the site owners in much the same way as having "National Association of Estate Agents" in your shop window may as well read "Unscrupulous weasels inside!".
