You may have noticed ads for shady products popping up in your Google Ads from time to time. In a post to the Google Public Policy blog recently, Kevin Walker detailed Google's policy on handling counterfeit ads and some new changes they will be using to deal with them in 2011.
Kevin starts off the blog with some interesting figures, stating that AdWords is host to some "one million advertisers in 190 countries". He went on to say that in the last quarter of 2010 they "shut down" 50,000 AdWord accounts sporting advertisements for counterfeit goodies.
No system is perfect and the team seems to have their hands full handling these types of accounts. However, Kevin (the acting Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Google), said that they were ramping up their efforts by making the following changes:
Respond to Counterfeit Complaints within 24 Hours: Introduced in 2009, Google created a complaint form users could fill out to report phony products being pushed in AdWords. Kevin says moving forward, response time is going to average 24 hours - or less.
Improving AdSense Anti-Counterfeit Reviews: Another step the company is making is to improve upon existing policies for reviewing product ads. Kevin promises they will work "more closely with brand owners to identify infringers" and extricate them from AdSense.
New Help Center Page: Finally, the company has created a new help center page where you can report counterfeiters. The Goog is hoping this will make it easier for clients to actually report fraud when they find it. Let's hope that is the case.
To hear more from Kevin and the Google team and learn how this may or may not affect your website, visit the Google Public Policy blog .
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