Under the headline is a video with the tagline "Google Flights has a new feature to help you save money - An upgrade to Google Flights will tell you the best time to book your next getaway." Hilarious.
After all, this is all related.
Lately, I've been messing with wifi and hostapd. I get massive maps images, and pictures of hotels in the first 1/2 of my respones. I presume "hostapd" is a close mistype to "hotel", and people are searching for high speed wifi, so they may be searching for 80211ac or some such. Or likely google just sees "wifi thing -> wifi", and now I'm apparently searching for "hotel wifi".
Great. I can't get anything meaningful, unless I add -hotel.
They've gone so overboard with loose context matches, that I can't imagine their ad placement has much value.
I'm not fine with it showing up by default.
I'm seriously pissed off when stores (Google Play Store, App Store, Amazon, et al.) show ads when I search for a brand name. Ads show up first for popular item categories, and sometimes take all the space above the fold.
I was looking for HBO Max this weekend. Disney came up first. How is that permissable?
To sell your competitor's name is wholly uncompetitive. A shakedown of every business with an internet presence.
Just because Google was in the right place at the right time shouldn't give it license to continue this shitty behavior -- without innovating or delivering value -- for the rest of all time.
I went for an Apple device to move away from Google-the-nosy-company, but I was happy to leave Google-the-advertising-company too. Yesterday I was searching for "microsoft authenticator" in the app store, and the top result is... another "sponsored" authenticator. WTF, Apple?
The QR code search doesn't do this, so apparently someone decided that text searches should.
People are still believe there are ethical companies, whatever it means for them.
This is especially insidious when you're searching for security or banking apps.
For example on my device I search for "chase" first result is Chime, followed by a box labeled "ads related to your search" with rocket money, Western Union, and a payday loan company.
Then below that is "limited time events" that list the barbie app, uno and some racing game.
Then below that is "You might also like" with Uber, Mahjong, and some habit tracker.
Then below that is "Similar Apps" with wells Fargo, Discover and PNY Bank apps.
Then below that is my search results with the first result being the chase app.
I don't know how this behavior is defensible
This is a security risk.
I don’t know where this came from. If I am googling Cancun it’s the perfect time to show me an ad for less famous destination I never heard of but might end up going to.
If I had somehow never heard of Toyota, telling me it exists when I am looking up Honda is perfect.
I get that there are plenty of times where this is annoying but there are also plenty of times where this unlocks awareness that helps a consumer.
If it's presented as a relevant result, it doesn't seem so good. If it's presented as "you might also be interested in" then it seems better.
It's obvious what I wanted, neither I nor Pepsi are happy about that ad being there...
Google is the gatekeeper of search. (Just as an app store is the gatekeeper of software on a mobile platform.)
Google gets to tax every inquiry into your product, even those with direct sales intent.
If you put people on a bell curve distribution, some non-negligible percentage will always click on the first link. Google taxes all of this.