Interesting read...they'll probably shut down my adsense stream for posting this, but I don't care.
And don't post any chick pics or they might shut me down. Maybe I should start selling steroids and human growth hormones here.
Details behind Google's $500 million penalty payout to the US govt.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204624204577176964003660658-lMyQjAxMTAyMDIwNTEyNDUyWj.htmlSmall excerpt...
Posing as the fictitious Jason Corriente, an agent for advertisers with lots of money to spend, Mr. Whitaker bypassed Google's automated advertising system to reach flesh-and-blood ad executives. Federal agents created
www.SportsDrugs.net, designed to look "as if a Mexican drug lord had built a website to sell HGH and steroids," Mr. Whitaker said in his account of the sting.
Google first rejected it, along with an anti-aging website called
www.NotGrowingOldEasy.com. But the company's ad executives worked with Mr. Whitaker to find a way around Google rules, according to prosecutors and Mr. Whitaker's account.
The undercover team removed a link to buy the drugs directly—instead requiring customers to submit an online request form—and Google approved it. "The site generated a flood of email traffic from customers wanting to buy HGH and steroids," Mr. Whitaker said.
To pay Google's fees for the growing online traffic, undercover agents made payments every two or three days with a government-backed credit card.
Federal agents grew more brazen. They created a site selling weight-loss medications without a prescription, according to Mr. Whitaker and people familiar with the matter. They also added another site selling the abortion pill RU-486, which in the U.S. can only be taken in a doctor's office.
Google's ad team in Mexico approved the site, so U.S. consumers searching for "RU 486" would see an ad for the site. Google ad executives allowed the agents to add the phrase "no prescription needed."
Days later, federal agents added links to buy the drugs directly. Such sales broke U.S. laws prohibiting the sale of drugs from outside the country and without a prescription. "There were photos of the drugs, descriptions, labels that clearly printed out that we were shipping without a prescription and it was from Mexico," Mr. Whitaker said.
By the end of the operation in mid-2009, agents were buying Google ads for sites purportedly selling such prescription-only narcotics as oxycodone and hydrocodone. Agents also got Google's sales office in China to approve a site selling Prozac and Valium to U.S. customers without a prescription.
"Google's employees were instrumental in bypassing policy regarding pharmacy verification," Mr. Whitaker told the Journal. "The websites were blatantly illegal."
