Google acts on copycat rip-off government websites



Google acts on copycat rip-off government websites
In the wake of the ‘Heartbleed’ web disaster, here’s some good news – Google has agreed to block those copycat web sites that charge rip-off prices for Government services, some of which are free, like the European health insurance cards.

We were nearly caught out by one of these sites, which are sometimes designed to look like official government, ‘.gov’, sites.

Google has agreed to remove these listings from the top of their search pages, but it appears that they will still appear in the listing results. 

One of the biggest rip offs was a  an "official UK passport application" sites which paid Google, through their adwords auction, to appear above the official government site and persuaded people to part with £112.50 for a passport, compared with the £72.50 real price.

Google says consumers can submit complaints about misleading ads to its Adwords feedback. We should all do that! 

More news here: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/apr/12/google-blocks-copycat-website-ads

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