Benjamin Edelman, assistant professor at Harvard Business School, claims Google and partners are inflating PPC conversion rates and increasing advertiser cost via four specific channels, including Google’s own Chrome browser.

Google makes money by charging advertisers every time a user clicks on a Google advertisement, but in the instances described and documented by Edelman, he makes it appear Google and partners are colluding to intercept traffic to websites that would be navigated directly (and for free) rather than by searching.

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/20...ng-conversions

Nothing too special about his findings. It is obvious that Google likes to optimise their pages and browser for clicks that will earn them money, whilst at the same time not neglecting the natural search results. Optimization or deception, it is a thin line, isn't it. But the things described in the article could not be even called grey-hat.