Digital Media

With Bing, Microsoft is trying to reinvigorate its role in the search business. It has also inadvertently brought renewed attention to the problem of illicit pharmacies operating on the Internet.

The attention on Bing came earlier this month with the results of a study that examined Internet pharmacy ads (PDF) on Microsoft's revamped search engine. The study, conducted by LegitScript, an online pharmacy verification service, and KnujOn, an Internet compliance company, found that 90 percent of the reviewed Internet pharmacy advertisements were from fake or illegal Internet pharmacies. It also found that most of the Internet pharmacies reached through sponsored ads on Bing did not require a valid prescription.

Sponsored ads are links, paid for by companies hawking products and services, that turn up at the top of search results pages alongside noncommercial links.

A study by LegitScript and KnujOn takes Microsoft to task for sponsored search ads on its Bing site that lead to sketchy Internet pharmacies. (Click image to enlarge.)

(Credit: LegitScript)

"We were able to purchase potentially addictive drugs without a prescription or any age verification via Bing.com ads," LegitScript President John Horton told CNET News. "We also received counterfeit medication. Microsoft profits from these illegal ads, which put Internet users at risk."

But the problem isn't confined to Bing. For all the buzz generated by Bing--which debuted in June, replacing Microsoft's Live Search--it's still only the third most-used search tool, dwarfed by first-place Google and also well behind Yahoo. And those search engines themselves are no strangers to ads for illicit pharmacies.

The problem has also been around since consumers began flocking to the Internet more than a decade ago. In 2003, for instance, Yahoo's Overture unit bowed to pressure from pharmacy groups and stopped selling search-related advertising to unlicensed online pharmacies. That also spelled an end to the troublesome ads on Microsoft's MSN portal, at that time a significant partner of Overture.

Over the last decade, the situation has evolved to bring new challenges.

"In the early years of the Internet, it was a case of entrepreneurs not understanding the legal requirements for the dispensing of drugs. Later, it was the push by senior citizens and public officials to obtain drugs that were cheaper than medications available in the U.S.," said Carmen Catizone, executive director of the trade group National Association of Boards of Pharmacies.

"At the present time," said Catizone, who vouched for the research by LegitScript, "the Internet has become a haven for drug seekers and abusers, particularly (regarding) controlled substances. It is a much more serious and dangerous phase of the Internet."

Rogue online pharmacies sell a wide range of medications, from the sleep aid Ambien to the muscle relaxant Soma and the erectile dysfunction treatments Viagra and Cialis. The NABP lists only 18 certified and recommended online drugstores at its Web site, while more than 3,800 are non-compliant and not recommended

The response from Redmond
Microsoft disputes LegitScript's claim that 90 percent of the sponsored Internet pharmacy ads on Bing are fake or illegal, adding that it is working to weed out the rogue advertisers that do slip through. The company uses an Internet pharmacy verification service called PharmacyChecker--a competitor of LegitScript--to ensure that its sponsored prescription drug advertisements are legitimate.

Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL each carved out a little more U.S. search market share in January, but Google still had the biggest piece of the pie, according to a report Wednesday by ComScore.

Yahoo Web sites accounted for 21 percent of the market (up half a percent) compared to the month before, while Microsoft grabbed an 8.5 percent slice (up 0.2 percent), and AOL nabbed 3.9 percent of the market (a 0.1 percent increase).

Google, while still holding the largest slice of the market by far, accounted for 63 percent of the search industry in January, down half a percent.

One interesting observation from Silicon Alley Insider is Yahoo's consecutive five-month run in posting modest monthly gains in U.S. search market share.

In August, for example, Yahoo's market share stood at 19.7 percent, according to SIA. But in the past five months, it has steadily grown, garnering more than a 1 point increase during that time.

Google is the leading search engine, but most people use others, too.

(Credit: Forrester)

Despite Google's dominance of online search in the U.S., the company still isn't the only player in town.

A study by Forrester found that 55 percent use more than one search engine per week, and that 20 percent of searchers use only Google.

"Users find that other search engines are actually more effective for certain things--like looking up stock quotes or finding news stories," said analyst Shar VanBoskirk in the study.

According to the study, 69 percent of people use Google at least weekly, compared to 50 percent for Yahoo, 18 percent for AOL, and 14 percent for Microsoft.

Google attracted the greatest number of unique visitors among the top 10 Web brands for the month of December, while AOL was best at keeping its users glued to its site, according to figures released Tuesday by Nielsen Online.

During December, 133.9 million unique visitors went to a Google site, while Microsoft followed with 125.8 million visitors. Yahoo was third with 117.8 million visitors, and AOL was a distant fourth at 86 million.

But while AOL held the No. 4 spot in visitors, it took top billing in getting those folks to linger at its sites, averaging 3.4 hours during the month. Yahoo followed closely with 3.1 hours, while Microsoft and Google trailed with 2.24 hours and 2 hours, respectively, according to the report.

And while Facebook had the lowest ranking among the top 10 for unique visitor traffic, its users lingered on the site at a rate similar to Google.

How long visitors linger on a site may come into play as advertisers look to seed Web sites with 15-second to 30-second advertising video clips.

McDonald's restaurants and global Internet usage share something in common: more than 1 billion served within a month.

Global Internet usage reached more than 1 billion unique visitors in December, with 41.3 percent in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a report released Friday by ComScore.

The study looked at Internet users over the age of 15 who accessed the Net from their home or work computers. Europe grabbed the next largest slice of the global Internet audience, with 28 percent, followed by the United States, with an 18.4 percent slice.

But Latin America, while comprising just 7.4 percent of the global Internet audience, is the region to watch, noted Jamie Gavin, a ComScore senior analyst.

"The U.S. is slowing down in its growth and momentum, but Latin America, with social networking and the mobile Internet, is expected to gain momentum over the next few years," Gavin said.

He noted that while population plays a role in aiding certain regions to lay claim to a larger Internet audience, another equally important factor is the ability of the Internet to easily cross borders and take root.

A closer look at countries within the regions reveals that China accounted for the most Internet users worldwide, with a 17.8 share of unique visitors. The United States ranked second, with 16.2 percent, and Japan ranked a distant third, at 6 percent.

Across specific Internet properties, Google carried a sizable share of the global Internet market, visited by 77 percent of the worldwide audience, or nearly 776 million users.

Microsoft Web sites were used by 64.2 percent of users worldwide, and Yahoo sites 55.8 percent, according to ComScore. Sites run by Time Warner's AOL, meanwhile, were used by 27.1 percent of the worldwide Internet audience.

Google's search share encroached on rivals, rising 0.4 percentage points to 63.5 percent from October to November.

(Credit: ComScore)

Correction at 5:50 a.m. Monday: This story had an incorrect total for U.S. searches in November. The total was 12.3 billion.

Google grabbed a chunk of market share from rival search engines in the United States in November, new figures from ComScore show.

Google's share increased 0.4 percentage points to 63.5 percent from October to November, while Yahoo dropped 0.1 percentage points to 20.4 percent and Microsoft dropped 0.2 percentage points to 8.3 percent.

Further down the pecking order, Ask.com dropped 0.2 percentage points to 4.0 percent and AOL rose 0.1 percent to 3.8 percent, ComScore said.

The total searches performed dropped 3 percent to 12.3 billion, though, so even Google lost out in absolute terms even as it gained share. Each search holds the potential to show search ads, so the query total is financially significant.

The growing economic slump doesn't appear to have fully struck Web advertising.

Internet advertising revenues for the third quarter were nearly $5.9 billion, representing an 11 percent increase over the same period last year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

The bad news is online advertising appears to be slowing down. The third quarter in 2008 was up only two percent from the second quarter. For the first three quarters of the year, however, ad revenues totaled $17.3 billion, up from $15.2 billion for the first three quarters of 2007. The IAB said the $5.9 billion quarterly results were the second best ever.

Meanwhile, ComScore issued an ad-focus ranking for October. Platform A, AOL's ad platform reached 173 million Americans or 91 percent of the 190.6 million American's online. The Yahoo Network came in second by reaching 164 million people and was followed by Google's Ad Network with 158 million.

Time Warner posted flat revenues and an earnings dip in the third quarter, as its AOL unit continued to post a weakened performance.

The media giant generated $11.71 billion in revenues during the quarter, compared with $11.68 billion the same time last year. And its net income dropped to $1.07 billion in the quarter from $1.09 billion a year earlier.

Time Warner, which posted earnings of 30 cents a share in the quarter, beat analysts' expectations of earnings of 27 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters.

That gave Time Warner's stock a 2.49 percent lift in early-morning trading to $11.10 a share.

Time Warner noted that it posted growth in its networks, cable, and filmed-entertainment segments, offsetting declines at its publishing and AOL units.

Revenues decreased 17 percent ($207 million) to $1.0 billion, due to a 26 percent decline ($165 million) in subscription revenues and a 6 percent decrease ($33 million) in advertising revenues.

The decline in subscription revenues reflects mainly a decrease in domestic AOL brand subscribers, related primarily to AOL's strategy to offer its e-mail and other products free of charge to Internet consumers.

Driving the decrease in advertising revenues were declines in display advertising on AOL Network sites and sales of advertising on third-party Internet sites, offset partially by an increase in paid-search advertising.

Google and AOL have an arrangement for Google to provide paid-search advertising to the media company.

Apparently there's nothing like a crisis to get people to check financial Web sites.

(Credit: ComScore)

Yahoo is falling victim to the current economic woes, with analysts lowering forecasts for the company's financial future and layoffs in the works. But one part of the company is all but chortling with glee: Yahoo Finance.

According to ComScore's latest statistics, Yahoo is king of the heap, with 19.9 million unique users in the month of September, an all-time high for the site, according to Yahoo. I'm guessing that's going to look small once we see the October statistics, too.

Nowhere in the top 10 is Google Finance. Disclosure: No. 8, though, is BNET, part of CBS Interactive, which operates CNET News.