Redirected Hosts

[cbodendein]

I use four host files and I did a scan with spybot, here is what it found:

Microsoft.Windows.RedirectedHosts: [SBI $97C2C277] Redirected host (Redirected host, nothing done)
www.experts-exchange.com=127.0.0.1

Microsoft.Windows.RedirectedHosts: [SBI $926098F7] Redirected host (Redirected host, nothing done)
experts-exchange.com=127.0.0.1

Microsoft.Windows.RedirectedHosts: [SBI $C1DEB1AF] Redirected host (Redirected host, nothing done)
ask.com=127.0.0.1

Microsoft.Windows.RedirectedHosts: [SBI $25161DD4] Redirected host (Redirected host, nothing done)
www.ask.com=127.0.0.1

Now, I know that ask.com is a search engine, not sure why that is there, but I don't know what experts-exchange.com. If these two are perfectly fine, I will white list them, is there anything I should be concerned about with these websites?

[cbodendein]

hosts-file.net classifies experts-exchange.com as a site that is engaged in phishing. It also lists ask.com as a site engaged in malware distribution. Should these sites be removed from hosts-file.net, or should they be removed from Spybot as problems because maybe they are dangerous?

[DougCuk]

Experts-Exchange is a legitimate site - albeit with some odd marketing tactics. See here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experts-exchange

I often encounter links to this website in the results of Google searches relating to technical support issues. The layout makes it seem that you have to subscribe to see the answers by the "Experts" - but if you scroll way down below all the adverts you find the responses are all there for free. And they are often very helpfull answers to very obscure problems.

So is membership of Experts-Exchange.com just a con? I have no idea - I suppose it depends on if you object to paying for something you can see for nothing if you know where to look. But the quality of some of the questions and answers make it clear that some pretty good techies hang out on the website.