@donblanco it's not just Google, and nor we're they the first. People have been manipulating search results with meta-tag abuse since the beginning. Google, Microsoft et al just made it easier and monetised it.
Feel free to blame them for the cash grab, but even without them it'd not be much different.
Even then, if not them, someone else would have done it.
@shivvi Yeah, this is probably true, but they're an easy target for my ire :)
@donblanco point.
I just blame capitalism in general.
@donblanco with apologies for the spelling there... I'm blaming autocorrect for that.