New search engine Bing has become a haven for illegal pharmaceutical suppliers, it was claimed this week. An investigation indicated that 9 out of 10 sponsored adverts were advertising prescription drugs from companies directly breaking U.S law.
Working together, the firms Knujon (“no junk” backwards) and Legitscript, which monitors websites selling prescription meds, spent a month entering search terms for prescription drugs into Bing and checking out the sites they were directed to. They concluded that 89.7% of the adverts were for illegal firms.
Of the 10 firms that the researchers examined in greater depth, they discovered that none required a doctor’s prescription for supplying medications as required by law. In their report, the authors warned that the firm’s breaches of law were not minor slip-ups, but indicated that the websites were “wholly fraudulent” and run by “criminal networks”.
Having ordered from at least two of these sites, the investigators were sent medication purporting to be the erectile dysfunction medication Cialis, which was discovered to be counterfeit. They found that many of the advertisers were selling drugs from India, while others were being run by a Russian criminal gang.
They also discovered that rogue companies were posting adverts seeming to come from legitimate, reputable companies which actually directed internet surfers to illegal sites.
Bing is Microsoft’s attempt to break Google’s stranglehold over the search engine market. Launched a few months ago, the engine has been slowly chipping away at Google’s ratings, increasing its market share by 1% last month to a 9.41% share of the U.S market.
However the loopholes discovered by the report suggest that there are still major issues Microsoft needs to iron out. The firm's guidelines clearly state that any pharmacies advertising on their site need to operate within U.S law. 24 hours after the report was published, Microsoft issued a statement promising to take the claims seriously and investigate the issue.