Report: Google Was Repeatedly Warned About Taking Ads From Rogue Pharmacies

It may be difficult for Google to prove it was doing everything it could to avoid taking ads from rogue pharmacies, considering the sheer volume of warnings it received from industry watchdogs over the years. That’s according to a Wall Street Journal report published over the weekend.

The piece details warning after warning that illegal pharmacies were advertising on Google AdWords, some of which were purported to have been ignored by the company, others of which were said to have been taken into consideration. Yet, the reports of rogue pharmacy ads kept coming, indicating at least that third-parties seemed to be more successful than Google at identifying problematic ads. The company also declined to use a database of verified online pharmacies, developed by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, until recently.

Google earlier this month said it was setting aside $500 million to potentially settle an investigation by the Department of Justice into advertising-related issues. Later, it has been reported that the inquiry relates to Google allegedly knowingly accepting advertisements from rogue pharmacies.

Here are the specific instances of warnings cited by the WSJ in its story:

• In 2003, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) wrote a letter to Google warning about rogue online drug outlets and providing information about its own VIPPS (Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Services) database.

• In July 2008, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) wrote to then-CEO Eric Schmidt saying it “was able to find prominent displays of ads for rogue Internet
  pharmacies on both Google and Yahoo in a search for a subset of controlled drugs included
  in CASA’s analysis. This suggests that these search engines are profiting from advertisements
  for illegal sales of controlled prescription drugs online.” (Here’s the white paper.)

• In 2008, the NABP again asked Google (and Microsoft and Yahoo) to stop illegal online pharmacies from advertising. Google asked for the list of problematic pharmacy advertisers, and said it was “helpful.”

• In 2009, California Western School of Law professor Brian Liang wrote in the American Journal of Law & Medicine that Google (and Yahoo and MSN) “actually allow and profit from illicit drug sales from unverified websites.”