Microsoft Allegedly Profiting from Ads for Illegal Internet Pharmacies
LegitScript, an online pharmacy verification service, and KnujOn.com, an Internet compliance company, have released a report analyzing online advertisements for Internet pharmacies displayed by Bing.com. They found that 89.7 percent of the Microsoft-sponsored Internet pharmacy advertisements were fake or illegal Internet pharmacies.
LegitScript president John Horton said, “We were able to purchase potentially addictive drugs without a prescription or any age verification via bing.com ads. We also received counterfeit medication. Microsoft profits from these illegal ads, which put Internet users at risk."
Most of the Internet pharmacy advertisements analyzed in the report did not require a valid prescription, and the authors were able to order a prescription-only muscle relaxant from a Microsoft-sponsored Internet pharmacy ad without a prescription. Another prescription drug from a Microsoft-sponsored ad was found to be a counterfeit.
"These Bing.com ads aren't real pharmacies," said Garth Bruen, KnujOn's president. "These types of sites are usually the product of organized crime and vast illicit drug networks, many of them based in Russia and Eastern Europe, that deceive, defraud, and poison Internet users."
The study also found disclosure gaps in Bing.com's advertising program, showing how an advertisement that appears to have been placed by a legitimate pharmacy links instead to a "rogue" online pharmacy.
"We urge Microsoft to fix this problem," Horton and Bruen stated. "By continuing to allow these advertisements, Microsoft is facilitating prescription drug abuse and the proliferation of counterfeit drugs, both of which put our most vulnerable citizens at risk."