Google is responsible for misleading ads, Australian court rules

Google is responsible for misleading and deceptive ads that use the name of a company to direct traffic to a competitor’s site, an Australian court ruled on Tuesday.The Federal Court of Australia ruled in an appeal that Google is responsible for misleading and deceptive advertising targeted to appear near search results for a competitor’s name. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) brought the case to court over four instances of misleading ads. In an earlier ruling a primary judge had ruled in favour of Google.In the four cases, searches for a company’s name brought up sponsored links containing that name — but the links led to the websites of competitors that had paid for the ads — via redwolf.newsvine.com