London — Once again boldly caught for advertising contraband Olympic ticket resellers, ads for dope, and ads for fake identification cards and UK passports. According to a BBC report Monday, Google is reportedly caught profiting from advertisement revenue of illegal products found on its automated advertising system, AdWords, which Google removed upon request, but search giant stated it would keep profits from companies.
As the BBC revealed the matter to the company’s attention, these ads were instantly pulled down by Google, the search engine giant has also removed links to illegal Olympic ticket resellers following requests from the U.K. Police, according to the report.
Selling tickets on the open market without authorization from the Olympic authorities is a criminal offense in the UK under the London Olympic and Paralympic Games Act 2006. But the search giant quoted as saying by 5 live Investigates that the company would keep any revenue it might make from companies advertising illegal services before such adverts are removed.
The BBC investigation originated from a consumer named Liz, who declined to give her full name, mentioned that: Me and my sisters decided to pool together to buy our mum and dad some Olympic tickets, who is from Solihull.
They typed ‘Olympic tickets’ into Google and saw a link to ‘LiveOlympic Tickets’ at the top of the page, believing that a company that came up first in Google’s advertising results had to be legitimate.
According to Liz, “It was a sponsored ad at the top of the page, so we presumed it was a trusted official site, the victim informed BBC, and we spent £750 (USD$1,159.2) on two tickets for my mum and dad to see the 1500m, which is what my dad really wanted.”
The ads that Liz clicked on was one published by Google’s own AdWords advertising service — one of the company’s main sources of income. However, after placing her order, when LiveOlympicTickets asked her to fax in a copy of her signature to finalize the sale; That is when alarm bells began ringing, said Liz and she began to become suspicious and contacted the BBC investigative reporters.
In a statement to BBC, Google said: We have a set of policies covering which is partly automated and this helps make the initial selection of the advertisements which appear at the top of its search results. These policies are guidelines and Google’s AdWords does filter key words by both automated systems and human beings that can help sift out adverts which might be offering unlawful services.
When we are informed of ads which break our policies, we investigate and remove them if appropriate. Our objective is to create a simple and efficient system for legitimate businesses to promote and sell their goods and services whilst protecting them and consumers from illicit activity.
LiveOlympicTickets is not an officially authorized 2012 Olympic ticket reseller.
The Metropolitan Police, which is committed to preventing crime associated with the 2012 games through Operation Podium, said it is aware of LiveOlympicTickets and that the company is breaking the law.
However, as the company is registered abroad, thus it may be difficult to prosecute as it is outside the UK’s jurisdiction. The maximum penalty fine for reselling Olympic tickets without authorization from the Olympic authorities was raised last year from £5,000 to £20,000.
A family member of Liz’s wrote to Google, and received this reply: “While Google AdWords provides a system for companies to advertise their services, we are not responsible for, nor are we able to monitor the actions of each company.”
This latest fracas highlights a enduring problem at Google. Despite this, Google has placed adverts for unofficial ticket resellers which are breaking the law by selling London 2012 tickets to customers in the UK.
In this case, LiveOlympicTickets was Google’s top sponsored link for 2012 tickets–and remained so for more than a week even after the Metropolitan Police had asked the search engine to remove the advertisement.
The company link was finally removed after 5 live Investigates contacted Google. But a close study by the program team found some other sponsored Google adverts such as for online dope sellers, fake ID cards, and fake UK passports as well.