The extension scans Google search results for flagged keywords that indicate that a business could be a scam or otherwise untrustworthy, along with providing links to Yelp and Google reviews to give the user the option to conduct their own research. This project was inspired by a real-life experience where one of our teammates nearly got scammed by a local home renovator "business." Many people are unaware that bad-faith actors will pay to be the top search results of pages. We hope that this project cuts through the fluff and empowers people to do their own research.
How we built it
Challenges we ran into Asynchronous Logic: One of our biggest hurdles was ensuring the background scripts and content scripts communicated perfectly. Fetching risk scores for a business and then injecting that "review box" into a live Google search page without slowing down the user's browser was a tough balancing act.
Defining "Risk": Quantifying what makes a scam was difficult. We had to figure out how to programmatically weigh different "red flags"—like how much weight to give to a brand-new domain versus repetitive patterns in reviews—to make the scam meter actually reliable.
DOM Manipulation: Google updates its search layout constantly, so making sure our extension correctly identified where to place the safety information without breaking the page layout was an ongoing battle.
Accomplishments that we're proud of The Scam Meter: We successfully built a working assessment tool that evaluates technical, social, and financial data points to give users a real-time risk score.
Seamless UI Integration: We managed to create a clean, non-intrusive review box that provides immediate value to a user the moment they search for a business.
Team Collaboration: Successfully managing feature branches and merging the scam detection logic into a cohesive Chrome extension with the team was a major milestone
What we learned The Mechanics of Deception: By researching online scams, we learned the technical patterns scammers use—such as specific domain registration habits and "social proof" manipulation in reviews.
Chrome Extension Architecture: We gained a deep understanding of how background scripts function as the "brain" of the tool while content scripts act as the "eyes and hands" on the webpage.
Data Security: Working on a "Safety Tool" reinforced the importance of ensuring our own code didn't introduce any vulnerabilities while trying to protect the user.
What's next for Kachowww Project
Expanded Red Flags: We want to integrate more advanced checks, such as analyzing the business's social media presence or looking for "too good to be true" pricing patterns automatically.
Real-time Crowdsourcing: A future goal is to allow users to report suspected scams directly through the extension, which would update the risk score for other users in real-time.
Support for More Search Engines: While we started with Google, we plan to expand the extension to work on Bing, DuckDuckGo, and directly on e-commerce sites like Amazon.
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