In 30 European countries, 36.3% of Google links to medicine sellers led to illegal websites
Researchers checked 3,839 links to online medicine retailers in Google results for six active ingredients; 36.3% led to sellers without recognized authorization.
Researchers analyzed 9,000 organic Google search results in 30 European countries and found that 36.3% of links to platforms selling medicines led to sellers without recognized legal authorization, ua.news reports. ua.news
ua.newsua.newsOpen source ↗ The sample covered the 27 EU member states, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Queries were collected from March 2023 to April 2024, using phrases translated into the main languages of each country, for six active pharmaceutical ingredients. Advertising and personalized results were excluded.
Share of illegal sellers by medicine
Of the 9,000 results, 3,839 links (42.6%) led to retail platforms selling medicines. Of these, 63.7% led to legal pharmacies and 36.3% to illegal sellers. The authors checked licenses, official verification logos, national pharmacy registers and databases of fraudulent websites.
The share varied by drug. It was 1.4% for paracetamol and 5.5% for ibuprofen, but 55.1% for amoxicillin, 76.2% for alprazolam and 77.5% for clonazepam. For controlled substances, links to illegal sellers appeared more than three times as often as links to legal pharmacies.
Search result poisoning and national rules
Among all identified links to illegal sellers, 56.6% were associated with so-called search result poisoning, in which compromised third-party websites redirect visitors to domains of illegal pharmacies. ua.news
ua.newsua.newsOpen source ↗ In countries that permit online sales of both prescription and over-the-counter medicines, the first ten results contained about 69% fewer links to illegal sellers than in countries where online sales are prohibited. The authors stressed that the observational nature of the study does not allow a cause-and-effect relationship to be established.
In Croatia and Greece, illegal sellers outnumbered legal pharmacies among the first ten results, and in Cyprus the researchers found no links to legal pharmacies. Sweden and Norway, where online sales of prescription medicines are allowed, had the highest overall share of links to illegal sellers.
