Google has started to use ‘evil’ tactics. The most recent to join the list of evil things done by Google, is hijacking of 404 pages if the user has installed the latest Google Toolbar.

Matt Cutts says and I quote:

if you’re a webmaster and want users to see your custom 404 page, just make your page be more than 512 bytes long.

Damn you Google! Who are you to tell me what should be the size of my custom error page if at all I show one? It is my right to show a error page which is less than 512 bytes. Your toolbar manipulating that error page and showing something else that favors your search box is simply not acceptable.

The way I read this is: It is not a tactic to help users. It is a tactic to get its search box to more and more places and hence getting more and more people to search using Google. Stop it Google! Behave like a good company and stop using your user base along with shady tactics to get more users/ searches and hence advertising dollars.

(via Seoker, Codswallop and TC)

UPDATE (February 25, 2008)
Google on its own 404 pages does not show a search box. See sample @ http://www.google.com/404page. So, why does it want to put one at other websites