Schools Protest Internet Switcheroo
from the sneaky-adwords dept
Who knew that colleges were so competitive? An online university is trying to drum up additional business by placing misleading text ads on Google’s Adwords program. They’re buying up keywords of other universities, which is pretty typical for a competitive use of Adwords. However, where the online university gets sneaky is in the text of the ad. They make it look like an advertisement for the university the person is searching for – but when you click through, it takes you (of course) to the online university’s page instead. The targeted universities are not happy. I would imagine that those who click through aren’t happy either. People don’t like to be tricked, and aren’t likely to pay much attention to the online university, but quickly go back and try to find the school they were searching for in the first place. Chances are, once Google reviews this misleading ad, they’ll pull it from the site, but the targeted universities are also talking about seeing if the ads violate any consumer protection laws.
