Knujon and LegitScript reveal that Bing is full of rogue pharmacy ads

And again we are citing the report of independent researchers from Knujon and LegitScript. The two groups conducted a study of pharmacy advertisements placed on Microsoft's new search engine Bing. The research showed that 90% of sponsored links advertising prescription drugs on the site are violating federal and state laws.

In the address bar of the browser the researchers specified the terms like "xanax vicodin" to see what kind of advertisements would be returned. They reported that 89.7% of ads were placed by the businesses which violate US legislation. Knujon and LegitScript say that of the 10 ads they studied in depth none required a prescription as stipulated under the federal law.

"It is important to emphasize that the ten advertisers analyzed in this report are not engaged in minor violations of pharmacy law," they wrote. "Rather, they are wholly fraudulent websites run, in most cases, by criminal networks. They sell unapproved or counterfeit drugs, including addictive medications, without any requirement of a prescription."

Knujon and LegitScript ordered drugs from two of the 10 Bing advertisers and these firms sent them the advertised drugs without asking any proof of prescription. Having tested the medicine that was represented by one of these companies as Cialis the researchers found that it was bogus.

While Microsoft requires online pharmacies advertising on Bing to adhere to US laws, in many cases the Bing ads lead to websites that are clearly operated by people violating laws forbidding the sale of drugs from countries such as India. And even when the ads were supposedly posted by legal pharmacies they redirected users who clicked on them to rogue websites.