Google starts to pay for shady advertising
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Google is setting aside $500 million to potentially resolve a case with the Justice Department. The DOJ is investigating whether Google knowingly took ads from online pharmacies that break U.S. laws.
When you run as much advertising as Google does it's hard to police everything. But Google has a history of problems in this regard. In 2006 researcher Ben Edelman examined some of these and concluded that "Google ought to do more to make ads safe."
Edelman, who holds both a Ph.D. in Economics and a law degree from Harvard, is now an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets unit.
On his personal blog, after noting the potential DOJ settlement, he lists other areas in which Google has engaged in questionable and even unlawful advertising practices. He stands by his conclusion of 5 years ago that Google can and should do more.
Eh, what's that Google principle about making money without doing evil?
Among the ads Edelman says that Google has taken are those that:
- Charge for something that's actually free
- Promise something for free but charge for it
- Promote copyright infringement tools
- Offer counterfeit software
- Promote programs bundled with adware/spyware
- Offer mortgage modification offers with deceptive claims
Edelman's post goes into more detail on each of these.
He also describes how Google is not just a passive party to these ads. The company earns huge profits from them, often a super-majority cut of the profits earned by the illicit merchants.
It turns out that the Communications Decency Act may give substantial safe harbor to Google for most of these practices, even though publications accepting such advertising in the print world would be liable. But there are other areas, besides the pharmacy ads, where Google may have liability, including ads for counterfeit software and other copyright violations.
There's a lot of smart people at Google and it might serve them well to put more effort into systems to catch and stop the advertisement of illegal products and services.
Larry Seltzer is a freelance writer and consultant, dealing mostly with security matters. He has written recently for Infoworld, eWEEK, Dr. Dobb's Journal, and is a Contibuting Editor at PC Magazine and author of their Security Watch blog. He has also written for Symantec Authentication (formerly VeriSign) and Lumension's Intelligent Whitelisting site.