November 19, 2003

Overture Services has stopped selling search-related advertising to unlicensed online pharmacies, in response to concern about illegal drug sales over the Internet.

Overture, the commercial search subsidiary of Yahoo, said Tuesday that it filtered the last of its advertisements related to online pharmacies or pharmaceutical drug sales on Monday, and it notified advertisers over the weekend that it would cease selling the ads.

The move comes in response to lobbying from U.S. pharmacy trade group the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) and Drugstore.com, a major Overture advertiser and one of the Net's biggest online pharmacies. For the last nine months, NABP and Drugstore.com have been trying to wipe out ads for prescription drugs, such as painkillers Vicodin and OxyContin, that can be ordered freely by mail from some Web sites without a doctor's consent. NABP held a meeting with Yahoo last Wednesday about removing the ads.

Overture lets advertisers bid for placement in Web search results related to keywords, ranging from "Vicadin" to "digital cameras." The ads appear under the heading "sponsored listings" when surfers type in related terms.

Overture partner sites, including Microsoft's MSN Web portal and Yahoo, have displayed the ads. Overture said it will ban the sale of drug-related keywords to licensed and non-licensed pharmacies until it has employed a third party to verify the legitimacy of drug-related advertisers, which it expects to do in the first quarter of 2004. The company still allows ads related to addiction recovery keyed to drug terms.

"We think legitimate online pharmacies serve an important need by giving consumers access to drugs cost-effectively," Overture spokeswoman Jennifer Stephens said. "However, the online environment has become increasingly complex in this area. We thought it was best to take the listings down until we can impose guidelines that will help identify legitimate online pharmacies." Stephens said that MSN, one of Overture's biggest partners, also wanted the ads removed from its site. MSN licenses commercial search results from Overture.

Overture's new policy is a win for NABP and Drugstore.com in their campaign to rid search engines of ads from rogue pharmacies. The two entities have contacted several sites, including search engine provider Google, MSN and America Online, saying that they have run ads from illegal distributors. NABP and Drugstore.com have wanted the sites to agree not to run ads from distributors unless they are certified by the industry. The association lists 14 certified pharmacies on its verified Internet pharmacy practices site (VIPPS), including Drugstore.com and Walgreen's online arm, Walgreens.com.

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