Google News hijacked by online pharmacies

We’re all aware of the huge number of websites offering prescription medicines – often illegally and usually fake – on the Internet.

Now, advertising for medicines is also appearing with increasing regularity on Google News, mixed in among the legitimate articles on the pharmaceutical and other industries. Many of the ads explicitly say that the drugs are available without a prescription.

Whilst researching an article, this reporter tried to find information on big pharma companies which had recently bought a generic drugmaker, and was horrified to see the entire first page of news results were ads for prescription medicines, almost invariably those which are at high-risk of counterfeiting.

SecuringPharma.com has contacted Google to clarify its policy on this sort of activity, and measures that can be taken to curb it, but has yet to receive a reply. The majority of the ads seem to originate from one site, which would suggest that a targeted solution to the problem should be feasible.

As soon as we hear more we’ll keep you informed, but the case raises interesting questions about the responsibility of organisations in monitoring potentially illegal activity online. We’d welcome your feedback on this and other topics so please send comments and questions to newsdesk@securingpharma.com.