Illegal Olympic tickets show up on Google

LONDON, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Google's advertising system brought the company profits selling unofficial London 2012 Olympics tickets, marijuana and fake ID cards, British authorities say.

Police said Google has complied with requests to take down links to illegal Olympic ticket sellers and other questionable advertisers when they were brought to the company's attention, the BBC reported Tuesday.

Selling tickets on the open market without permission from the Olympic authorities is illegal in Britain.

Illegal ads appear on Google because the system making the initial selection of advertisements at the top of its search results is partly automated, experts said.

"Relying on an automated process is remarkably lax and typing key words into Google can show up illegal sites quite quickly," said Reg Walker, an online security adviser.

Ads for unlawful services can slip by the system despite key word filters meant to identify illegal ads.

If a filter flags an advertisement, Google says, it conducts a manual assessment and if it breaks Google's policy it is taken down.

"We have a set of policies covering which ads can and cannot show on Google," the company said in statement. "These policies and guidelines are enforced by both automated systems and human beings.

"When we are informed of ads which break our policies, we investigate and remove them if appropriate," the statement said.