Google has been making money from illegal Olympic ticket touts advertising their wares via the search engine, an investigation has found.
Despite these Olympic ticket reselling services being illegal, Google has pocketed money from the people behind these adverts, even though the digital promotions have now been taken down.
The situation was brought to BBC 5 Liveââ¬â¢s attention when a listener rang into its ââ¬ËInvestigationsââ¬â¢ show complaining about a scam site, called Live Olympic tickets, which was promoted at the top of the Google search results page when ââ¬ËLizââ¬â¢ (who declined to give her full name), entered in a search to buy some tickets to an event at this summer's games.
It was a sponsored advert [placed by Googleââ¬â¢s AdWords service] at the top of the page, so we presumed it was a trusted official site, and we spent ã750 on two tickets for my mum and dad to see the 1500m, which is what my dad really wanted,ââ¬Â Liz told the radio show.
However, after she placed her order, the bogus company not officially recognised as a 2012 Olympic ticket reseller, demanded that she faxed over a copy of her signature in order to complete the ticket transaction ââ¬â which is when Liz alerted the radio show.
She has so far been unable to get the ã750 back from the site, while Google has pocketed the money from the illegal adverts.
Google has said that it was not responsible for the actions or able to monitor the activities of every company which advertises with it.
However, despite now removing the adverts, it took a week for Google to do so after the Metropolitan Police asked the search engine to take them down.
Full article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...-money-from-illegal-Olympic-ticket-touts.html
Despite these Olympic ticket reselling services being illegal, Google has pocketed money from the people behind these adverts, even though the digital promotions have now been taken down.
The situation was brought to BBC 5 Liveââ¬â¢s attention when a listener rang into its ââ¬ËInvestigationsââ¬â¢ show complaining about a scam site, called Live Olympic tickets, which was promoted at the top of the Google search results page when ââ¬ËLizââ¬â¢ (who declined to give her full name), entered in a search to buy some tickets to an event at this summer's games.
It was a sponsored advert [placed by Googleââ¬â¢s AdWords service] at the top of the page, so we presumed it was a trusted official site, and we spent ã750 on two tickets for my mum and dad to see the 1500m, which is what my dad really wanted,ââ¬Â Liz told the radio show.
However, after she placed her order, the bogus company not officially recognised as a 2012 Olympic ticket reseller, demanded that she faxed over a copy of her signature in order to complete the ticket transaction ââ¬â which is when Liz alerted the radio show.
She has so far been unable to get the ã750 back from the site, while Google has pocketed the money from the illegal adverts.
Google has said that it was not responsible for the actions or able to monitor the activities of every company which advertises with it.
However, despite now removing the adverts, it took a week for Google to do so after the Metropolitan Police asked the search engine to take them down.
Full article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...-money-from-illegal-Olympic-ticket-touts.html
