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Google’s AI-powered search feature takes platform users straight to malware-laden spam sites.
By BleepingComputerthe problem was first spotted by search engine optimization (SEO) expert Lily Ray, who took to X-formerly Twitter last week to show that Google’s AI-powered generative search experience (SGE), which generates web content and regurgitates it into paraphrased snippets, had returned numerous pages of spam in response to the query “pitbull puppy for sale on craigslist” .
“OH WELL,” Ray tweeted, along with a screenshot. “SGE WILL EVEN RECOMMEND SPAM SITES AS PART OF THE RESPONSE.”
That SGE still can’t reliably distinguish useful search results from full-on SEO spam, especially given Google’s recent extensive crackdown on spam, is enough of a problem on its own. Unfortunately for Google, however, this particular SGE bug only got worse from there.
When the folks at BleepingComputer visited the AI-recommended spam sites themselves, they encountered a barrage of fake captcha scammers and YouTube pages designed to trick visitors into subscribing to spammy browser notifications that flood their computers with unwanted advertisements, some of which were looking for personal information. user information, and even browser extensions that hijack search queries.
In other words, Google’s SGE directed BeepingComputer directly to fraudulent malware.
Fresh Painting
Google, meanwhile, told BleepingComputer that it continues to “update our advanced anti-spam systems to keep spam out of Search, and we use these anti-spam protections to safeguard SGE.” A company spokesperson added that Google “has taken steps according to our policies to remove the shared examples, which were displayed for infrequent queries.”
To be fair, spam and malware are unfortunate facts of the web, and searchers make the mistake of clicking on sneaky links like this all the time.
But as BleepingComputer points out, embedding these links in convincingly paraphrased SGE snippets brings an extra layer of legitimacy to harmful content. The spam sites that appeared in Ray’s and BeepingComputer’s searches had sketchy-looking URLs that your average search engine might have avoided. However, when rerun by SGE, the malware-ridden links got new coats of paint.
Spam is nothing new. But SGE is, and as this incident reveals, we can probably expect many of today’s search problems to persist in a new AI-organized search landscape.
Learn more about Google SGE: Google Search AI Says Slavery Was Good, Actually
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