When people typed in terms such as “addiction”, “treatment”, “alcohol” and “rehab”, they were guided towards helplines earning large commissions for referring patients to private clinics. Selling in this way is banned in parts of the United States but remains legal in Britain. It is believed that Google earned £4.2 million a year by putting one of these helplines at the top of its searches. Addicts were passed on to clinics for a referral fee of up to £20,000 a month. The practice was exposed by the Insight team at The Sunday Times, which hailed Google’s…

Source: The Times January 08, 2018 00:05 UTC