It’s a regular Tuesday night – quite early – around Midnight. My non-upgradeable Mac Hard Drive is groaning under the weight of mysterious “Mac System Data” so I do what any self-respecting, tech person does — I Google it “mac system data”. There will be an answer here to help me cleanse my hard drive and regain some valuable space.
Top result! Sponsored!
Must be legit, right? After all, Google wouldn’t let just anyone pay to be at the top of the world’s most trusted search engine. Right?
🖱 Click.
The article is slick, helpful, and even has a handy Terminal command. With some obvious signs of AI assistance. But ahh. Who doesn’t these days?
I copy. I paste. Terminal asks for my password—like it always does. And I accept the Core System permissions, because, well, they always do, right?! But ultimately, I comply because I just want my Mac to stop gobbling gigabytes like a 1980s Pac-Man. Waka-waka! Simple. Job done.
But wait. System data hasn’t changed? And what’s that CURL command about. I groan as worse—yet – the problem actually isn’t fixed. In fact, nothing happens. My non upgradable Mac Hard Drive is still full to the brim with this mysterious “Mac System Data”.
The Realization
Now I realise, somewhere in the world, a “wonderful” person, with only my best interests at heart, now has my password, any sensitive data on my HDD, my keychain, and probably a list of every Wi-Fi network I’ve ever connected to. All thanks to a Google Ad.
Then comes that sinking feeling. The, “oh no” moment as I realize that “I now need to change every password I’ve ever used since 2007.” I feel stupid. I feel violated. I feel like I just handed the keys, and alarm codes, to my digital world to a complete stranger because Google said, “Hey, this guy paid us, he must be cool.”
Where’s the Responsibility, Google?
So, Google, riddle me this: How is it that a small business genuinely trying to help people with their computers gets shut out from reaching customers due to being labeled a “risk,” yet an obvious hacker (bad actor) gets prime real estate on your search page to serve up “handy” scripts to us tech gobble-guts? Where’s the line between actually protecting users and simply profiting from anyone with a working credit card? Shouldn’t there be, I don’t know, a tiny bit of vetting before you let someone advertise a script that asks for my Mac password?
Lessons Learned (The Hard Way)
If you’re reading this, let my humiliation be your warning. Don’t trust everything you see at the top of Google. Don’t paste random commands into Terminal. And maybe, just maybe, question why the world’s biggest tech company can’t keep its own ad platform free from obvious scams.
As for me, I’ll be over here, changing my passwords, running malware scans, and wondering if my next Google search will end with me accidentally dealing with the devil for a few extra gigabytes of storage.
Final Thought
Google, if you’re listening: Maybe spend a little less time policing small businesses and a little more time making sure your “helpful” ads aren’t just phishing expeditions with a marketing budget.
This article is a work of fiction—I wasn’t actually scammed. I did, however, click on the link and, thanks to a few subtle signs (the kind only a computer or software engineer might notice), I stopped well before running any commands.
The warning it highlights, though, is very real. I genuinely found this article at the very top of Google after searching “mac system data”—a paid ad, right on Google’s platform.
Stay sharp out there, fellow tech traveler.