In Google’s Public Policy Blog Post, “Combatting Rogue Online Pharmacies,” Google’s legal director Adam Barea detailed some of the steps Google is taking to hinder the ability of rogue pharmacies to abuse Google’s systems by promoting their prohibited illegal services and products.

According to the post, Google has been working with LegitScript, a company that verifies pharmacy legitimacy, and since 2010, yielding a 99.9% decrease in the number of ads for illegal drugs and rogue pharmacies. To achieve that reduction, Google blocked over 3 million ads from suspected rogue pharmacies and removed thousands of videos from YouTube for promoting pharmaceuticals in violation of its guidelines.

“Rogue pharmacies are clearly a matter of public concern” Barea writes. “This is why we work closely with the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (‘CSIP’), a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to stopping rogue online pharmacies and keeping consumers safe on the web. If a user searches on Google for terms related to online pharmacies or buying pharmaceuticals, a prominent advertisement from CSIP will often appear on the search results page, urging caution and linking to the LegitScript pharmacy verification tool.” Google is one of the founding members of CSIP.

Barea also acknowledges that rogue pharmacies continually adapt their online marketing practices, meaning this is an ongoing battle.  However, Google and YouTube are doing many things to combat the problem effectively, including:

• Having review teams at YouTube respond to videos flagged for their attention around the clock, removing any content that violates their policies, including content promoting the sale of drugs;
• Maintaining stringent advertising policies across ad platforms that prevent ads from appearing once it is determined that the content is not appropriate;
• Tweaking autocomplete predictions to exclude phrases associated with rogue online pharmacies (source: CNET) and
• Regularly collaborating with other tech companies, as well as federal and state regulators, to collectively take action against suspected rogue online pharmacies and make it more difficult for them to abuse online services to promote their illegal activities.

As a result of these types of efforts, it has become increasingly harder for rogue online pharmacies to effectively market their illegal services and products on the internet.  Today, web service providers like Google are refusing ads from suspected rogue pharmacies, domain name registrars are removing suspect rogue pharmacies from their networks, payment processors are refusing payments to these operators, and social networking sites are removing them from their systems.
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The Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (CSIP) and our 12 member companies have the shared goal of helping address the growing problem of consumer access to illegitimate pharmaceutical products on the Internet. Continue to read this blog for updates on CSIP’s education, enforcement and information-sharing efforts.