Report: 90% Of Bing’s Internet Pharmacies Search Ads Lead To Rogue Sites

A report (PDF) by LegitScript and KnujOn claims that of the prescription drug and online pharmacy search ads on Bing (i.e. adCenter), Microsoft’s search engine, 89.7% led to “rogue” Internet pharmacies. By “rogue” they mean Internet pharmacies that fall into the categories of: Those that facilitate the sale of prescription drugs, including controlled substances, without […]

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A report (PDF) by LegitScript and KnujOn claims that of the prescription drug and online pharmacy search ads on Bing (i.e. adCenter), Microsoft’s search engine, 89.7% led to “rogue” Internet pharmacies. By “rogue” they mean Internet pharmacies that fall into the categories of:

  1. Those that facilitate the sale of prescription drugs, including controlled substances, without
    requiring a valid prescription.
  2. Those that sell drugs from sources that are not licensed as a pharmacy in any US jurisdiction.
  3. Those that illegally source unregulated, unapproved prescription drugs from outside of the
    United States.
  4. Those that are otherwise deceptive or misleading.

This study was done over the June or July 2009 months and only examined Bing’s search ads, not the organic listings. Microsoft currently has not commented on this report.

LegitScript is an Internet pharmacy verification organization identified by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP).


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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