Google Fined $500 M Over Fake Drug Ads
The world’s largest internet search giant, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is close to settling a Untied States criminal investigation over allegations that Google made money by allowing advertisements from online pharmacies that break laws in Untied States.
The Wall Street Journal obtained information from a source about the ongoing investigation coming to a close over ads worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In recently filed papers by Google, $500 million was set aside by Google for investigations by the Justice Department. According to Google’s spokesperson, this money was set aside by Google as a settlement amount or for a potential resolution over the ongoing investigations by the Department of Justice. However, Google’s spokesperson did not mention anything about a ongoing drug investigation by the Department of Justice. The spokesperson just mentioned that the investigation was related to Google ads by certain advertisers, without specifying it was actually pharmaceutical advertisers.
The federal investigation is related to a report over Google accepting the advertisement in full knowledge about the pharmaceutical companies based in Canada and elsewhere breaking United States drug laws. The drugs in question are fake impotence drugs and other unapproved natural remedies that are easily available online from these websites without the need of any doctors’ permission. The report added that if a search engine is found benefiting from these online pharmaceutical companies, it will he held liable under the United States laws.
Google’s major source of revenue is advertising, according to the recent quarter ended March, 2011. Other forma of revenue for Google are by offering display advertising management services and cloud based services. It provides its display advertising management services to ad agencies, advertisers and publishers at low cost.
Google has been under scrutiny of federal agencies in United States and Europe over its uncompetitive business practices which use Google’s dominant business position to make competition irrelevant. The federal justice department is preparing a case against Google. Recently Google’s acquisition of ITA was approved by the Justice Department after Google agreed to provide access to ITA’s flight time and booking software to other competitors and also setting up of an independent review party over the dealings.
In December 07, Google, Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), the three largest search engine companies were fined a combines amount of $31.5 million over allegations that the three search giants had accepted numerous bribes from illegal gambling sites to push their websites ahead.
