Irresponsible google adwords ?
The internet remains largely unpoliced and we are always amazed that there aren’t more problems with the amount of money spent on the internet daily in situations where it is impossible to properly check who you are dealing with, whether on e-bay or millions of other sites. This is not to say we are not big fans of the internet, we are, it’s just that there are risks, and it’s all too easy to make assumptions. One such assumption which is very wide of the mark, would be that advertisers on google results are necessarily legitimate, that’s simply not the case. Google has very rudimentary checks on it’s advertisers and doesn’t prioritise rooting out the bad guys either.
A recent example of the above, perhaps inevitable, is the trade in Olympics tickets. In an investigation by the BBC, this found that google pay per click ads include unauthorised 2012 Olympics tickets together with ads selling illegal drugs and fake ID’s, notwithstanding that all of these constitute criminal offences.
Part of the difficulty with these sites is that many are not hosted in the UK or aren’t UK companies, and this creates jurisdictional havoc in terms of whether any action can be taken legally.
Google does have some techniques which can find obvious attempts to sell unlawful products, but the individuals or businesses who want to try and sell these items will use all available tactics to get past google’s automated techniques.
All in all not ideal, and remember, that the best way of protecting yourself if you are buying online is to use your credit card, which gives you some comfort, although this comes with it’s own risks, in terms of giving out your confidential information and card details.
