_bcron , 7 hours ago

No, anything Google shows you is kosher and totally symbiotic. A website being shown on Google is at the site owner’s discretion - if they allow search engines to crawl they get the benefit of exposure, and the search engine gets the benefit of having relevant hits and ad revenue and all that. Most sites want click-throughs so it’s usually in their best interest to let search engines list their sites.

Google isn’t exploiting anyone, kinda the opposite, since site owners don’t pay for any ads or exposure (but that exposure has so much value that they’ll pay for SEO). Site owners can decline and Google abides. Anything on Google is on Google with consent.