You know how keen Google is to expand it’s breadth? Well, how about this, it seems it’s swapped the oo in it’s logo for some ooh-la-la, in the shape of two blue diamonds stamped Pfizer.
Before you rush to get stocked up on tamiflu and viagra, however, check out The Register article on Google Pharmacy which reveals it to be a front for a fake drugs seller. How do they know it’s a fake seller, well they claim to be able to provide generic versions of dozens of drugs that are not yet off-patent, that’s how.
The spam that arrived advertising Google Pharmacy stated: “We’ve just launched a pharmaceutical interfaces for Google, as well as several new features for the people buying pills and using pharmaceutical interfaces”. Poor grammar aside, you just can rest assured that it was definitely not the real thing right from the start. Or, could you?
According to an unrelated article on WebProNews, the sponsored Googlads that appear when you search for the likes of “Vicodin” or “Oxycontin” are not necessarily from fully legitimate companies either. Some of these sites, which appear above and to the side of search results in the popular search engine, are selling direct drugs that usually require a doctor’s prescription.
Carmen Catizone, executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, is according to WebProNews, talking with Google about a third-party service that will help them differentiate between rogue and legitimate pharmacies.
It will be interesting to see whether that works out, or whether the pharma spammers and scammers will simply find a way around it.