back to article Google 'close to $500m settlement' over illegal drug ads

Google has set aside $500 million not for an antitrust settlement, but to settle a US criminal investigation into claims that it made hundreds of millions of dollars from ads purchased by illegal online pharmacies, according to a report citing people familiar with the matter. Earlier this week, in an SEC filing, Google said it …

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  1. Turtle

    Nice!

    A very interesting and informative article! I am looking forward to reading *many* more like it in the future!

  2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    WTF?

    Yeah....

    Maybe Google should just set 500 million aside to move to a place where it won't be bothered by governments and various "actors" looking for a cash windfalls.

    Seriously.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Damned if you do...

    ...it seems easy to say, well, they should have been paying attention and not allowed the ads. But if they'd erred on the side of preventing ads that might be placed by sleazebags, there'd be a hundred breathless stories about how evil Google is for preventing [ma-and-pa-shop here] from placing ads, and obviously it means they're favoring [big competing company that places more ads].

    I don't have much time for companies that 'launder' ads that lead back to scumware after a few steps. A few years ago, I found a big chain of ads on Overture (Yahoo's service, IIRC) that lead straight back to some Russians who were doing the CoolWebSearch trojan. But calls to Yahoo and similarly complicit ad brokers - which didn't at the time include google, interestingly - were blown off; they just checked out the first level away, and since *that* level wasn't doing anything bad, they didn't care. And that level went to a webhost in Canada, and that one went to a host in Estonia, and that one would go to a bulletproof host in Russia that would actually stick the banner ads up and then serve the page to hijacked computers.

    If you ask me, the guys who need to be hauled out and shot are the ones buying the top spot ad for things like malwarebytes, that sucker people into reflexively clicking a link to freesoftdownload.ru or whatever the hell, which undoubtedly serves precisely the things that malwarebytes is meant to detect...

    God help a legit pharmacy located in Canada that tries to send its customers an email...

  4. Forget It

    Don't be evil

    Don't be evil

    Remember that?

  5. mhoulden
    Boffin

    Following the money

    Going after companies like Google is obviously easier than tracking down the people behind these fake "pharmacies", as shown by http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/30/spam_fine/, but it doesn't do a lot to get them shut down. Locking up the spammers would be very satisfying but there are plenty more to take their place. I suppose the main reason these spammers exist is because there's a market for what they sell. Would there be so many dodgy offshore casinos if online gambling was legalised in the US, and would there be quite as much a demand for "Canadian" "pharmacies" if medicines were easier and cheaper to get hold of legally? Despite all the lobbying against free healthcare in the US I wonder how many people over there would welcome the chance to buy medicines on prescription from known and trusted sources for about $10 as we do in the UK under the NHS, and what the knock on effect would be on the scam pill pushers.

    1. Flybert
      Grenade

      no such thing as free healthcare

      OT

      "Despite all the lobbying against free healthcare in the US I wonder how many people over there would welcome the chance to buy medicines on prescription from known and trusted sources for about $10 as we do in the UK under the NHS"

      oh ? .. the doctors and nurses work for free ? .. the drug companies give away their product there ?

      oh ?.. "the government pays for it" .. ahhhh .. no .. it's your wages that pay for it with taxes ..

      there is no such thing as free healthcare .. someone is paying for it , or if it's paid with debt, the workers are just paying more for it than they would have "out of pocket"

      it blows my mind that anyone thinks they aren't paying for services *provided* for some national system, when in fact they are paying more on average, through being taxed and paying a government bureaucracy to manage things, than if they paid upfront for the service.

      1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

        @no such thing as free healthcare

        "when in fact they are paying more on average, through being taxed and paying a government bureaucracy to manage things, than if they paid upfront for the service"

        How much do Americans pay on average for health care (I include "company cover" which is of course also a stealth tax)?

        How dose this compare to the UK (e.g. NI minus the pensions part)?

        I know of a late family friend from the USA who came to the UK for 3 weeks of holidays and *private* dental treatment as it much cheaper than just getting it done in the states.

        Unfortunately he did not provides financial details, though is actions speak for themselves, but clearly you can to back your statement up?

      2. Yag

        Yes, you're right.

        Public founded health care costs more due to the added administrative costs.

        This is why you're better off by either dying like a dog if you're broke, or by subscribing to a private insurance, with added administrative costs AND added costs to pay the exec's bonusses and shareholders dividends.

        Wait...

  6. Brett Weaver
    WTF?

    Bit of a problem with this..

    Google are being fined for showing advertisements for products which are illegal in the States or cannot be purchased directly in the States...

    So... No Right Hand drive cars, Kinder Surprises, Amsterdam coffee houses, European brothels then?

    Censorship comes in many forms.

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