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Comment by advisedwang | Hacker News Reader

Google is literally getting a cut of these scams through their ad revenue. Google should be responsible for preventing scams being able to buy their way to the top of the search results.

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Yes, and they are likely very good customers - because their whole business depends on being very high in search results, so they are willing to spend a lot on it. Looking as they are basically charging a markup on a service that somebody else (the government) provides, they are probably willing to share much bigger part of their revenue with Google than a legit business would.

And Meta for all the fraud and scam ads on Instagram and Facebook.

People are getting all worked up about ridiculous antitrust stuff, while everybody is ignoring that Google and Meta are making billions of dollars of profits from outright organised criminal activity, which these frauds and scams are.

I wonder if Kagi would have been better or if it also had the bad results first.

Yes and me too! I fell for the same gov-looking web site scam when renewing a passport in a hurry, courtesy of Google paid search rankings.

Do no evil, but how about earning money from evil doers?

Yes, Google either don't care about scams, or they actively encourage them because they get a cut. Google are not the good guys here.

I regularly see scams on YouTube, e.g. an advert showing a video of Elon Musk explaining how he's going to give money away. Unambiguously a scam. I report the adverts, they are fine, according to Google. https://twitter.com/adrianmsmith/status/1727623865952514493

this happens for flight changes and cancellations as well. Search will surface numbers that purport to be the company, but are a third party that charges insane overheads to rebook or update your travel.

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