Here’s an example of the problem. Many computer users don’t know the difference between directing the browser to a URL and performing a web search for the URL. This confusion is encouraged by the browser manufacturers because they get kickbacks from the search engine monopolies when they direct users to their products.
This is how many kinds of impersonating tech support scammers get connected to their marks.
Someone typing “123 . hp . com / setup” (without the spaces, I don’t want scammer.info to auto-link the URL) into Google search gets a bunch of ads for HP impersonating scammers. I’ve posted reports on a lot of these, as have other posters here. But that’s not all. Since everything must feature Artificial “Intelligence” garbage these days, Google’s A”I” now offers these completely unhelpful summaries at the top of the results. There are three youtube videos and three websites featured in the A”I” summary. All of them are from scammers impersonating HP!
The URL is the official URL where the real HP assists people in setting up their devices. So victims are typing the correct address as instructed, just typing it in the wrong place. How Google search became the wrong place is another example of A”I”-accelerated capitalist enshittification.
