Yet another example of why Google is NOT your friend :-( | Your stories | Discussion forum

Right. Avoid sponsored links for CRA when searching. CRA isn’t going to pay to advertise itself.

Google marks sponsored links as “Sponsored" or "Ad".

Legitimate small local businesses use Google and Facebook ads to promote their services to targeted audiences. It could be a local farm, a theatre, etc. it's their way to compete with the likes of Amazon and mega corps.

Absolutely nothing is wrong with clicking on ads. But like with everything we do, one has to make use of that thing between the ears.

@Mordko, fair enough. My underlined statement was too cryptic and too much of a blanket statement.

I generally only click on 'sponsored ads' from entities and domains I am familiar with, e.g known media, government, and retail goods/services businesses I already know.

If I do see a 'sponsored ad' from an unfamiliar source and it appears to be of personal interest, I will do a separate Google search for the entity from scratch. I will not click on any links from within ads from unknown/unfamiliar sources.

The point being is none of us need to be 'sold' anything. If we are interested in buying something, we can (and should) independently google search for ourselves.

I once got an email purporting to be from PayPal offering me $5. I called the real PayPal and they confirmed that the $5 offer is from the real PayPal. (I forgot now why the real PayPal offered me $5.)

It is a good idea to bookmark one's banking sites if one doesn't wish to remember them.

Very risky to access one's online banking through a Google search each time. I warned one friend who was doing that.

Scammers don't need to buy an ad to have their fake site show up for awhile at the top of search results. There are "search engine optimization" firms that specialize in getting one's site to the top of search emgine results for certain search terms.

Some clients of one financial institution got scammed that way. I think it was a Canadian credit union. The financial institution refused compensation as their online banking site and systems weren't compromised.

Victims did a search and clicked on a link at the top of the search results to access their online banking. Unfortunately, that time the top result was to a fake look-a-like site.

I don't use Google or Facebook for anything, and block all their domains. (Along with all the social media.) DuckDuckGo is, at the moment, a safer alternative that doesn't get all the Google scams. Of course, one still has to be alert about everything else out there, but it's not as big a target for advertizers.

And I like the feeling that I'm not feeding the Google monster.

Duckduckgo does not track your IP so good if thats your concern. You get less personalization as a result though. I have no reason to hide my IP as I don’t do anything illegal and I like personalization.

Google employs more robust security defences against phishing, malware, and unsafe content. You really need to use a strong antivirus program with DDG. Although it is apparently improving.

Google is better for search accuracy by far and its a lot faster, so there is that. DDG relies on Bing which does not work for me.

It's just a fact. Facts should not upset you. Google has built in threat detection and filtering mechanisms and DDG does not. I am talking about prevention of getting “infections” from the web. Google search tries to warn you about phishing and malware and Chrome provides protection.

As for scam websites, nothing is completely immune. DDG also gives scams as top results. Obviously less of a news-making issue than Google algorithm missing a bad website.

Duck Duck Go phishing attempt
byu/SquatCobbbler inSchwab

If it gives you what you want then great.

I compare it to its impossible to have zero physical crime, no matter how many police u add to the force. The internet is no different.

I like personalization. If I like hockey and ballet but not football and opera then reading ads related to opera and football is wasteful for me and for the advertiser. For ads to work they have to benefit you as well as the ad-maker. No point spending money on ads related to children’s activities on people without kids.

Thanks to AI you can “personalize” the internet yourself. For example every morning you could be getting technical news related to metallurgy or nuclear physics or environmental regulations if that’s your area of interest. And they could be prioritized by relevance, importance, category of sources, etc. And you can make adjustments if it's not quite right. People used to do this in some companies but AI seems to do a better job. You can do the same for financial news or whatever rocks your boat.