> So far, Segura said, he has seen the scammers abuse only Google ads. It's not known if ads on other sites can be abused in a similar way.

An abuse of their advertising tech that could have been easily foreseen and prevented by Google.

My number one beef with Google is that the official site for anything you search for (the embassy to get visas, a museum to buy tickets, literally anything where money is involved) is never at the top of the search results. Of course I know the reason Google does this. But almost none my non-tech friends and family understands this and they are frequently duped into paying more, or getting outdated/wrong info, or even scammed.