Google Caught Running Ads for Illegal Olympic Ticket Resellers

Google runs a highly profitable business selling ads on its search page as well as on other websites. There are a number of factors that make it so profitable, but an important one is scale, Google sells a lot of ads each day.

Precisely because it sells so many ads, it's hard for it to police them. It has systems to weed out illegal ads or scams, but those systems are not infallible, as a BBC investigation found.

It discovered that Google was offering ads for unofficial resellers of London 2012 Olympics tickets. A special law in the UK prevents companies or individuals from selling tickets to any Olympic event if they are not officially approved to do so.

However, a search for tickets revealed that the top ad came from just such an unofficial reseller. Since it's a company outside of the UK, there's not much the authorities can do to shut it down.

But they can prevent Google from showing ads for this company. In fact, the Metropolitan Police says it contacted Google and asked for the ad to be taken down. The ad stayed up for a week after that, until BBC reporters contacted Google about it.

"We have a set of policies covering which ads can and cannot show on Google. These policies and guidelines are enforced by both automated systems and human beings," Google explained in a statement.

"When we are informed of ads which break our policies, we investigate and remove them if appropriate," it said.

This has always been Google's stance, though it hasn't always protected it. The company was ordered to pay a record $500 million, €393 million fine for running ads for online pharmacies deemed illegal in the US.

Google could do more to prevent ads for illegal companies or products from being run on its network, but it is close to impossible for it to be able to block all of them.