Yes, I would say Mcafee are simply being lazy or incompetent and instead of looking for viruses or actual exploits, they flag when they detect a chain of referrals.
Chain of referrals could be used for bad purposes, but could also be used for legitimate purposes like we do - the ad server has to track when an ad was displayed and when it was clicked on. It is a basic accountability to the advertisers done through a third party.