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Google's $500M Pharmacy Forfeit Sheds Light On Issues At Demand Media's eNom

The forfeiture of $500M in revenues by Google to the the U.S. Department of Justice Wednesday, over the use of Google's AdWords to advertise Canadian pharmacies, has shed some light on the types of issues that were facing Santa Monica-based eNom, the domain name registration and wholesaler owned by Demand Media, last year. According to the U.S. DOJ, Google has forfeit $500M--the amount Google earned from advertisements, as well as the amount earned by illegal pharmacies from sales--over the importation of prescription drugs into the United States. The forfeit comes as a result of Canadian pharmacies using Google's AdWords to advertise prescription drugs for sale on the search engine, which resulted in the importation of both controlled and non-controlled prescription drugs into the United States. Shipping prescription drugs from other countries into the U.S. is against the law. The issue appears to be the same one which had faced eNom in September of 2010, when eNom revealed that it had tied with LegitScript, an Internet pharmacy verification and monitoring service endorsed by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. At that time, eNom revealed that it was looking to boot "rogue" Internet pharmacies using its services, and was getting the assistance of LegitScript to ferret out domain name owners who were looking to illegally sell prescription drugs.