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It's wrong to trust the URL bar. For example, this search [1] has as top link an ad that boasts "google.com", and it really is! And if you click on it, you'll e

It's wrong to trust the URL bar. For example, this search [1] has as top link an ad that boasts "google.com", and it really is! And if you click on it, you'll end up on a google.com site, which nominally helps with printers, but in reality it's a tech support scam. So much of the distrust here is that google wants to be everything: to host their content and publisher content and user content; to broker ads and recommend links; to run their software on your computer and phone, to store your data on their servers. They serve too many masters. 1: https://i.imgur.com/HalErpIr.png https://i.imgur.com/HalErpIr.png

tommek4077 6y ago
As an advertiser, you can write whatever you want into the url displayed there. This does not need to match the real target.
- ridiculous_fish 6y ago
  But the real target is google.com. I just made https://sites.google.com/view/whalefacts https://sites.google.com/view/whalefacts, took me literally ten seconds, confirmed it was accessible from multiple IPs and multiple browsers. Google wants to be a content host and an ad broker and a search engine. Each of these is reasonable in isolation. Yet you can search on google, and Google will serve you an ad linking to a google.com site, and that site scams you out of money. This isn't theoretical, I know because my family was hit. Screenshot if it gets taken down: https://i.imgur.com/T6hVHr5.png https://i.imgur.com/T6hVHr5.png
  - kzrdude 6y ago
    Super boring answer, and this is not an admonition to you, but in general; shouldn't this lead to lawsuits? It needs to be tried in court.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    I'm confused, that's sites.google.com, the URL says that, and it's right, what's the problem?
icebraining 6y ago
Agreed, that's problematic. But Google didn't even have to not host content, they would just have to use a different domain. They have such weird blind spots.
jacquesm 6y ago
All this does is rapidly devaluate the google.com domain. Not a bad thing per-se.
kevingadd 6y ago
"It's wrong to trust the URL bar" is true but only because the companies operating services like... Google... don't bother trying to protect their URLs. It's not hard to have a separate 'user content' domain for your user content, we've done it at places I used to work for. But for some reason people think it's enough to use a subdomain or get cute and use the same domain with a different TLD (looking at you, github.io) So it is kind of frustrating to see someone offering to fix a problem they helped create in the first place through neglect or carelessness.

tommek4077 6y ago

As an advertiser, you can write whatever you want into the url displayed there. This does not need to match the real target.

ridiculous_fish 6y ago
But the real target is google.com. I just made https://sites.google.com/view/whalefacts https://sites.google.com/view/whalefacts, took me literally ten seconds, confirmed it was accessible from multiple IPs and multiple browsers. Google wants to be a content host and an ad broker and a search engine. Each of these is reasonable in isolation. Yet you can search on google, and Google will serve you an ad linking to a google.com site, and that site scams you out of money. This isn't theoretical, I know because my family was hit. Screenshot if it gets taken down: https://i.imgur.com/T6hVHr5.png https://i.imgur.com/T6hVHr5.png
- kzrdude 6y ago
  Super boring answer, and this is not an admonition to you, but in general; shouldn't this lead to lawsuits? It needs to be tried in court.
- iso1631 6y ago
  I'm confused, that's sites.google.com, the URL says that, and it's right, what's the problem?

icebraining 6y ago

Agreed, that's problematic. But Google didn't even have to not host content, they would just have to use a different domain. They have such weird blind spots.

jacquesm 6y ago

All this does is rapidly devaluate the google.com domain. Not a bad thing per-se.

kevingadd 6y ago

"It's wrong to trust the URL bar" is true but only because the companies operating services like... Google... don't bother trying to protect their URLs. It's not hard to have a separate 'user content' domain for your user content, we've done it at places I used to work for. But for some reason people think it's enough to use a subdomain or get cute and use the same domain with a different TLD (looking at you, github.io) So it is kind of frustrating to see someone offering to fix a problem they helped create in the first place through neglect or carelessness.