Recently,
Mississippi
Attorney General Jim Hood publicly asked Google to "address issues on
its web site that are allowing users to obtain illegal and counterfeit goods,
including dangerous drugs without a prescription." According to Mr. Hood, " “[o]n every
check we have made, Google’s search engine gave us easy access to illegal goods
including websites which offer dangerous drugs without a prescription,
counterfeit goods of every description, and infringing copies of movies, music,
software and games,”. Mr. Hood further stated, “[t]his behavior means that
Google is putting consumers at risk and facilitating wrongdoing, all while
profiting handsomely from illegal behavior.”
Google's
response to Mr. Hood's allegations that it is not doing enough to stop the
proliferation of ads for counterfeit goods has been called insufficient
and inadequate. According to the Associated
Press, Mr. Hood has stated that Google's previous response was also
"evasive" and "overly technical" and that its "lack of
meaningful action is unacceptable."
The
allegations against Google are extremely serious and very troubling. This is not the first time it has been
alleged that Google is profiting from illegal behavior. In 2006, a lawsuit was filed and later
withdrawn alleging that
Google profited from child pornography. In 2009, Rosetta Stone sued Google and
eventually reached a confidential
settlement regarding allegations that Google illegally sold Rosetta Stone
trademarks to third-party advertisers that linked to sites selling counterfeit
software.
Google
has a proven track record of turning a blind eye to illegal ads on its
platform. In August 2011, Google agreed
to "forfeit
$500 million for allowing online Canadian pharmacies to place
advertisements through its AdWords program targeting consumers in the United
States, resulting in the unlawful importation of controlled and non-controlled
prescription drugs into the United States." According to the Wall
Street Journal, Google's chief executive knew about the illicit conduct
that led to the record forfeiture. The U.S.
Attorney for Rhode Island stated, "[w]e simply know from the documents
we reviewed and witnesses we interviewed that Larry Page knew what was going
on".
Google's
alleged behavior of putting advertising profits ahead of its concern for users
was also recently criticized in the United Kingdom. According to The
Guardian, "thousands upon thousands of people are paying wholly
unnecessary fees to access basic services provided by the government". This appears to be occurring because Google is
not doing enough to police its AdWords system.
It took The Guardian's researchers, "milliseconds....to find a site
in breach of Google's rules." While
Google did remove one of the sites that The
Guardian reported was fleecing UK consumers, "the search engine
continues to promote copycat sites, happily taking the revenue that they
generate". The problem of illegal
content being easily accessible on Google's web sites is so serious that Prime
Minister David Cameron recently called out Google for not doing enough to
protect our children.
Facebook
recently announced that it blocks users in the Netherlands from seeing ads
for online gambling to comply with the Dutch Betting and Gaming Act. Last month, LinkedIn
updated its terms of service to ban the advertising of sexual services on its
platform. For more than ten years,
Google has been removing content from its French
and German indexes that may conflict with local laws. If Facebook and LinkedIn are able to implement
programs that block ads for services or products that are illegal in some parts
of the world why hasn't Google done more to protect its
users? Is it because 95%
of its revenues comes from advertising?
According
to the Pew
Internet Project report, 93% of all U.S. teens between the ages of 12-17 go
online. In addition, 47% of parents are
“very concerned” about their child’s
exposure to inappropriate content through the Internet or cell phones. This month, the Digital
Citizens Alliance released A
Report on How Google and YouTube Stand to Benefit When Bad Actors Exploit the
Internet that appears to demonstrate that Google is not doing enough to
protect our children. The report
provides multiple recent examples where YouTube is exhibiting ads for illegal
goods and/or services next to videos that appear to be targeted to children and/or teens.
While
some regulators
appear to be weighing whether television advertising regulations should be
applied to online video platforms, it is apparent that more safeguards are needed
to protect children from illegal ads that appear on YouTube and other web sites. Google's less than stellar record in monitoring
its ecosystem for illegal ads may push regulators and/or lawmakers to
over-regulate the Internet and stifle innovation.
Unless
Google acts expeditiously to better police its digital properties, it would not
surprise me if a coalition of state attorney generals commences legal action to
protect our children from the significant number of illegal ads that appear on
Google's web sites. To avoid a costly
and drawn out legal quagmire that may not only affect its advertising business, but the entire digital advertising economy, it may be in Google's best interest to fully cooperate with the NAAG and
take meaningful action that protects users from ads for illegal products
and/or services.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
