Ben Edelman’s latest exposé illuminates deceptive Internet ads that trick users into paying for freeware. Firefox has been targeted by these scammers for a long time, and although there are folks at Mozilla working to bring down both the ads and the landing pages, it’s basically a game of whack-a-mole. I agree with Ben that search engines should take more responsibility for stopping the ads and protecting their users.

In our case, Google does take preventative measures, but they’re minimal and easily circumvented. Try to create an ad targeting U.S. searchers that contains “Firefox” in the title or body and you’ll be denied for trademark reasons. But make it “Firefox2″ and you’re on your way. In fact, there are ads running today that inexplicably contain “Firefox”. Google does allow the term for ads targeted at most other countries, but that doesn’t explain why I’d be seeing them here in the U.S. Anyone know what kind of loophole scammers are exploiting here?

We’re actually better off than other targeted products like Yahoo Messenger and Skype, because most of the fraudulent Firefox sites these days link to Firefox with the Google Toolbar in the hopes of earning a buck. That’s good, because they used to charge users directly and then serve Firefox-branded mystery meat. But it’s also bad, because it means Google is profiting doubly from these Firefox ads—once for the click and once for the toolbar (which pays many dividends in the long run). Google has been responsive to complaints about these ads, but reaction is certainly more profitable than proaction here. Of course, as Ben notes in his article: every engine seems equally negligent right now.

Tech heads I’ve talked to usually dismiss the scams because “those are just advertisements, anyway.” But when my mother searches Windows Live for “firefox”, what, exactly, is supposed to tip her off that the first three links are paid for?

Where I come from, highlighting things and putting them at the top of a list usually means “these are important” or “these are probably what you want.” Microsoft doesn’t even bother to identify the top links as ads; at least Google euphemistically whispers “Sponsored Links” out in right field. Even so, I’ve watched countless people click these links over the years, and not a single one has ever realized he was clicking an advertisement. I always ask.

So if we’re going to talk search engine scams, let’s begin with the claim of untainted results. Unfortunately, the people most likely to cry foul are such sticklers for academic nuance—the results are technically separate from the ads, after all—that the big picture is completely lost on them.

Update: Windows Live has since added a “Sponsored Sites” disclaimer (also out in right field, of course). Interesting.