InBoxRevenge KS Forum

Ref: http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/08 ... ctions.ars
Google to pay $500 million over Canadian pharmacy ads
By Casey Johnston | Published August 24, 2011 11:18 AM

Google has agreed to forfeit $500 million generated from Canadian pharmacies targeting US customers through its AdWords program, the US Department of Justice announced today. The money represents revenue received by Google from the pharmacies as well as from unlawful sales made by the pharmacies to customers in the US.

Generally, it is illegal for pharmacies "to ship controlled and non-controlled prescription drugs into the United States from Canada," the DOJ states. Google acknowledged this as early as 2003, and yet allowed Canadian pharmacies to entice US customers to buy prescription drugs from their sites via AdWords advertising.

OK, so who is following up on the money trail, to find where all that money went? I've got a pretty good idea.
Where's Brian Krebs when you need him?

DOJ release: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/Augu ... -1078.html

I think this is referring to pharmacies that are operating legally in Canada, but which are shipping illegally to the US. In most cases, the drugs don't actually pass through Canada, but the company processing the orders has an address in Canada. The drugs come from unspecified manufacturers in India, Cyprus, Singapore, etc. There aren't that many legal mail order pharmacies in the US; if someone is buying the AdWords, it's not that tough to check the website to see if they're legal.

Aha, when I saw "Canadian pharmacies" I thought that was the infamous "Canadian Pharmacy"