This adds a new layer onto tricks that spoil your searches, including misleading targeted ads and low-quality websites built to appear atop the results page. At best, this clickbait is annoying. At worst, it can lead you to scams intended to get your credit-card number and other personal information.
Here’s a quick example: When I wanted to switch the Google account I use for Gmail, I searched “how to change default Google account.” The top result, with large highlighted text, led to an article posted to LinkedIn.
The author was Morgan Mitchell, content manager at
Adobe
. Mitchell has bylined 150 articles, all of them written in search-friendly Q&A format. Lots of those articles include customer-service phone numbers, the go-to solution for more complex problems—and for less tech-savvy users.Trouble is, Mitchell doesn’t exist. And the phone number in the article didn’t belong to Google or Adobe. Likely, Mitchell is just a figment of some AI’s imagination, and the number is a way to con unsuspecting users.