It's been like that since before "AI" (before ChatGPT's big marketing break-out)
Google's revenue is largely from promoting scams and tricking old people into clicking ads that look like normal search results. They're a total scumbag company, it's a sign of how broken consumer protection is that they've gotten away with it for years with no meaningful legal consequences.
[EDIT] Downvotes are warranted, I missed the large part of their revenue that comes from extorting companies into paying for ads for their own brand name so competitors and scams don't top searches for them.
It’s getting so much worse though. This post is from 2020[1], and it’s much worse now as google has removed the bold “Ads” word into a “sponsored” heading that is different across desktop and mobile and for the most part appears to be part of the list header rather than attached to any particular ad.
Bing is 10 times worse. They intermix search results with ads, and the only indication is a small light-gray/white “WEB” or “AD” tag that has a css blur and pixilation effect. It’s so subtle it’s insane.
Google's revenue is largely from promoting scams and tricking old people into clicking ads that look like normal search results. They're a total scumbag company, it's a sign of how broken consumer protection is that they've gotten away with it for years with no meaningful legal consequences.
[EDIT] Downvotes are warranted, I missed the large part of their revenue that comes from extorting companies into paying for ads for their own brand name so competitors and scams don't top searches for them.