I'm not sure I'm happy with this this report from Yahoo! that Google has decided to crack down on unlicensed pharmacies operating on the net. The problem is that regulators and Congress members are focusing their attention on the sites that "facilitate" the sales, rather than on the people producing and distributing the products. Here's a quote from the article: David Krane, a spokesman for Google, said the search engine will start using a third-party company to weed out rogue pharmacies that advertise on its site. Google also will ban the names of certain controlled drugs as keywords in its search-related advertising.

"The effect is that those words won't appear in our advertising," said Sheryl Sandberg, vice president of global sales and operations for Google. "It won't say 'Buy Vicodin here,' " she said, citing the powerful painkiller.

I wouldn't say that I approve of "rogue pharmacies" selling prescription medications illegally. After all, they haven't paid the appropriate licensing fees. However, the fact that a search engine company may be take the heat instead of the persons responsible for the illegal drug distribution doesn't seem right to me.

Of course, one reason Google is taking such drastic action is that they have been sporting ads for rogue pharmacists on their search engine. This could be a step towards the privitization of the internet in which websites must pay to be listed in popular search engines (just as people must pay to be included in the Yellow pages.) This move by Google seems a step in that direction; after all, the people who are buying these illegal drugs are trying to bypass the system; either because of high prices or the reluctance of their doctors to prescribe the medications.

I'm not sure why this move by Google has caught my attention; maybe it's just my general cynicism towards big business. What do you all think about this? Is Google doing "the right thing" by refusing to accept advertising from "questionable" companies?