Depending how you feel about having your privacy being violated and getting scammed, you’re not going to like this latest information about Google.

Google Maps, which so many of us use to find locations and shop for services, is corrupted with false businesses, some of them scams, according to a lengthy Wall Street Journal investigation.

And Google Chrome, the Internet browser many of us switched to because it was faster and easier to use than Internet Explorer, is so cookie-friendly that the Washington Post calls it “surveillance software.”

There are ways around this.

Google Maps

First, let’s look at Google Maps.

Let’s say you need an emergency locksmith or a garage door repair company and you search Google. A map comes up as part of the search with virtual pins.

Only some of those pins aren’t for real businesses. They’re fronts for companies that ship leads to other companies, or, worse, they’re scam companies.

If you follow The Watchdog closely, this is not news to you. Two years ago, I shared the story of Shareen Grayson of Preston Hollow who unknowingly invited a convicted thief in to fix her freezer.

She found him on Google. A leads company had hijacked the phone number of a legitimate appliance business and passed it on to the thief.

Sad to say that two years later, Google hasn’t shut this scam down.

“The scams are profitable for nearly everyone involved,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Google included. Consumers and legitimate businesses end up the losers.”

WSJ calls this “chronic deceit.”

Hundreds of thousands of false listings are posted to Google Maps and accompanying ads each month, the newspaper found.

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