14 DAY TRIAL // Google has filed a civil lawsuit against rogue advertisers, who repeatedly violated its polices and pushed illegal pharmacy ads on its network.
Pharma spam has plagued Internet users for years and continues to be aggressively distributed through a variety of channels, including email, rogue advertisements or compromised websites.
According to a report from security vendor Symantec, in July health-related junk emails accounted for 21 percent of the total spam output.
The sad reality is that despite these counterfeit drugs posing grave health risks, a lot of people continue to buy them.
Google compares its fight against pharma ads to a constant cat-and-mouse game. The company explains that regardless of its efforts, the peddlers still find ways to subvert the safeguards and thorough verification procedures.
"This morning we filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against advertisers we believe have deliberately broken our rules," Michael Zwibelman, Google's litigation counsel, announced.
"Litigation of this kind should act as a serious deterrent to anyone thinking about circumventing our policies to advertise illegally on Google," he added.
The company's action does not stop here, as it will continue to gather evidence and any abusers identified at a later date will get added to the lawsuit.
This is not the first time when the search giant goes after criminals abusing its services or exploiting its name for their own profit.
Last year in December the company filed a lawsuit against Pacific WebWorks and several other defendants, who operated Google-themed work-at-home scams.
"Rogue pharmacies are bad for our users, for legitimate online pharmacies and for the entire e-commerce industry—so we are going to keep investing time and money to stop these kinds of harmful practices," Zwibelman concluded.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has also taken successful legal actions against rogue advertisers. A complaint filed in 2008 resulted in the shutdown of a major operation, which pushed scareware ads on Google and other networks.