Google have pledged to remove advertisements that sell counterfeit goods within 24 hours, according to a company blog statement.
The search engine recognises that its AdWords pay per click marketing service could be abused by crooks looking to make a quick profit. They say that they are tuning a “set of sophisticated automated tools” to help combat the practice.
In the last six months of 2010, the company shut down 50,000 Adwords accounts for illicit activity, The Daily Mail reports.
Removing unreputable PPC clients from the search engine listings is good news for a transparent PPC agency. Genuine clients and companies are more likely to benefit from increased hit rates, and equally the customer will be directed to the right place or product.
Kent Walker, Google’s senior vice president and general counsel, described the situation as playing cat-and-mouse with the counterfeiters. Last year the company invested $60m (£37.4m) just to tackle counterfeit goods advertising.
“With over one million advertisers using AdWords in over 190 countries, how do we weed out the bad actors who violate our clear policies against advertising counterfeits?” said Mr Walker. He then introduced a series of methods available to brand owners to report suspected fake products.
They said that all online complaints forms filed by copyright holders will be checked within 24 hours. Google also intends to monitor its AdSense rules more closely to identify infringers which could lead to a ban from the service. A help page will also be set up so that these policies and complaints procedures are clear.
As cited in The Telegraph, Mr Walker added: “Ads for counterfeits aren’t just bad for the real brand holder – they’re bad for users who can end up unknowingly buying sub-standard products, and they’re bad for Google too.”
