INFORMS Open Forum

Online sponsored ad ban has limited impact on consumer access to foreign pharmacies

  • 1.  Online sponsored ad ban has limited impact on consumer access to foreign pharmacies

    Posted 12-21-2017 15:06
    As American consumers turn to online search engines for cheaper prescription drugs from foreign pharmacies, safety and quality concerns arise. In 2010, under compulsion from the Department of Justice, Google agreed to forfeit $500 million and ban sponsored search advertising by pharmacies that are not certified by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP). The ban covered all foreign pharmacies and a few domestics. Within the year, other major search engines followed. But a forthcoming study in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science, a leading scholarly marketing publication, finds that the ad ban had limited success in reducing access; motivated consumers still gained access to foreign pharmacies through organic search links.

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    Ashley Kilgore
    Manager, Public Relations
    INFORMS
    Catonsville MD
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