Google sets aside $500 million for mysterious ad probe (Criminal Probe ongoing by Feds)

Google sets aside $500 million for mysterious ad probe

SAN FRANCISCO (CNNMoney) -- Google is no stranger to federal investigations of its ever-expanding empire. Here's a new one to add to the list: Google has set aside $500 million for a potential settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the company's advertising practices.

The news, slipped Tuesday into a regulatory filing, caught many by surprise. The filing appears to be the first time Google has disclosed the DOJ probe. It offered few details, saying only that the DOJ has been investigating "the use of Google advertising by certain advertisers."

The company has not yet settled, and declined to comment further on the nature of the investigation or the timing of any potential settlement.

At Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) annual I/O developers conference in San Francisco, co-founder Sergey Brin dodged questions about the filing.

"Luckily, since we changed roles a few months ago, I don't have to deal with filings, and the DOJ, the SEC or other acronyms," Brin said.

When Larry Page took the reins as CEO from Eric Schmidt last month, Brin lost his "Google president" title and now focuses exclusively on engineering.

After setting aside the $500 million, Google said it revised its profit down for the past quarter, which ended March 31, 2011. It said it earned $1.8 billion, or $5.51 per share, down from the $2.3 billion, or $7.04 per share that it initially reported last month. The net income that Google initially reported already fell short of Wall Street's estimates.

The company said it does not expect that any significant financial hit from a potential settlement.

I'm not really sure whats worse. Having Google play this off as it wont hurt our bottom line, or the fact they were knwingly allowing businesses to sell illegal drugs online and advertised for those businesses and didnt think they were doing anything wrong.

This comes on the heels of various other lawsuits and legal troubles Google has...

This should be intresting.

Google being investigated for Antitrust violations
DOJ reviews google purchase of flight software - 400+ million set aside

reply to post by Xcathdra


I didn't anything in the article specify anything about illegal drugs.

Did it specify this anywhere in the article? (I might have missed it skimmed it quickly)

Also Does it specify which type of drug.

Where did you get this information that google was running adverts selling illegal drugs?

I'm pretty sure it involves prescription drugs, at least that's what I think a CNN article was suggesting, and possibly drugs like Salvia. By the way, how much money does google have if they can set aside half a billion dollars like that? A half a billion dollar fine is insanely high.

Legalize it!

reply to post by TheUniverse


The article is from Cnn.money. And they are being invesitgated, Google, by the DOJ for allowing advertising to occur that directed peopel to websites that sell prescription narcotics without a precription. Google has apparently been notified and warned several times over the years by the DOJ that its illehal, and Google opted to ignore it.

Google has been under DOJ investigation for some time, and google jsut announced the investigation at their last board meeting this year.

The drugs being sold are along the lines of vicoden, hydrocodone etc etc etc. In addition to sale sin the US, there are like 40 other countries who have purchased narcotis through these advertisements on google as well.

Its an intresting read.