Amul issues legal notice against Google over fake ads
Amul said a series of fake B2B campaigns regarding Amul Parlors, Distributors was being circulated through fake websites using Google Search Ads. The Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Limited (GCMMF), which owns Amul brand, has sent a legal notice to Google India on fraudulent practices it claims to have found being carried out by individuals and organizations using the latter’s platform.
Indian dairy giant Amul has sent a legal notice to Google over what the company says were fake B2B campaigns run by “miscreants.” The ads targeted individuals through fake websites promising Amul franchises through Google Search Ads.
The Gujarat-based dairy company claimed it had raised the issue with Google India but no action was taken, instead, Amul alleges that Google and web hosting service GoDaddy.com, benefited from the revenue generated through advertisements (subscription in the case of GoDaddy) on their platform.
According to Amul, upon opening these fake websites, individuals were required to fill up forms, following which they received calls from unknown numbers to pay registration fees ranging from INR 25K ($351) to INR 5 lakhs ($7,020) via NEFT in various bank accounts. following this, all contact would cease.
Amul said it had even submitted all legal documents pertaining to their copyright over the brand Amul and various brand names of its products to Google.
Amul said in a statement -“This was done under the guidance of Google India team, to prevent any miscreant from using ‘Amul’ keyword-based ads on the Google Search engine. Amul ran promoted ads on Google Search to educate customers against such fake campaign and had a dedicated page talking about it http://amul.com/m/amul-parlours-fake-websites.”
For the last 4 months, the sales team of Amul have been meeting innocent individuals who have been duped of various hefty amounts and guiding them to file FIRs and take other legal steps. However, the most imperative step that Amul feels is to prevent usage of platforms such as Google Search results for such nefarious activities.
It has been observed, Google Ads platform is allowing such miscreants to use its paid promotion services repeatedly without any background checks and in the process earning revenues from the click-based advertising on their page,” Amul further stated.
The dairy producer also noted that Google Ads platform is allowing such miscreants to use its paid promotion services repeatedly without any background checks and in the process earns revenue from the click-based advertising on their page.
