Top Google Executives Approved Illegal Drug Ads

Hugh Pickens writes "PC Magazine reports that the U.S. government used convicted con artist David Whitaker, owner of an online business selling steroids and human growth hormone to U.S. consumers, to help federal agents in a sting operation against Google when he began advertising with Google with advertisements that included the statement 'no prescription needed,' clearly violating U.S. laws. Google's settlement with the U.S. government for $500 million blamed AdWords sales by Canadian pharmacies, who allegedly were selling drugs to U.S. consumers. 'We banned the advertising of prescription drugs in the U.S. by Canadian pharmacies some time ago,' Google said then. 'However, it's obvious with hindsight that we shouldn't have allowed these ads on Google in the first place.' Peter Neronha, the U.S. attorney for Rhode Island who led the multiagency federal task force that conducted the sting, claims that chief executive Larry Page had personal knowledge of the operation, as did Sheryl Sandberg, a Google executive who now is the chief operating officer for Facebook. In 2009 Google started requiring online pharmacy advertisers to be certified by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy's Verified Internet Pharmacy Practices Sites program and hired an outside company to detect pharmacy advertisers exploiting flaws in the Google's screening systems."

Re:Sudden influx of Google is Evil Stories

[iluvcapra]

Bavarian illuminati, freemasons, elders of zion, the psyops corps of the PLA and the shade of Osama bin Laden.

Re:Once you go public...

[SaroDarksbane]

Yes, how dare they accept ads from companies willing to sell drugs to American consumers at a low cost. Clearly, the ethical party here is the government, who props up the monopolies of the pharmacy industry by force and prevents sick Americans from getting what they need to live at an affordable price.

Won't somebody please think of the Big Pharma CEOs??

Re:Once you go public...

[afabbro]

That's when the American business school ethic takes over. No right or wrong, legal or illegal, no such thing as pride in workmanship or quality;

I can think of endless private companies that could be described the same. Heck, just look at your local strip club.

Re:500 million??

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder whether government computers will continue to get quality search results from Google, seeing as Google has now lost some money to operate their very demanding data centers... ;)

All the government operated computers I use already redirect www.google.com to www.baidu.com and www.yandex.com.

Ever since we install that Symantec suite, things just haven't been the same ...

Re:American business school ethics...

[Hognoxious]

we were required to take several ethics courses

Is it true the marks from those courses get deducted from your overall score?