A Bitter Pill? Feds Writing Google a Prescription

Not too long ago, the Internet was the wild, wild West where just about anything could and did happen. Gamble, troll for sex, order liquor and cigarettes, buy prescription drugs without a prescription? No problem.

But over the last few years, state and federal authorities have used a number of strategies to slow down and, in some cases, eradicate each and every one of these practices. Now, the U.S. Justice Department is using its biggest club – the threat of criminal prosecution – to get Google's attention.

Wall Street and the tech world were puzzled a few days ago when Google said it was setting aside $500 million to try to settle a case with the Justice Department. That's half a billion dollars, which is real money by anyone's calculation.

It turns out that Justice has being investigating allegations that Google made hundreds of millions of dollars by running ads for online pharmacies that operate outside the law – a potential felony.

The question of the day is whether Google accepted the ads knowingly. The company has for years said it was trying to eradicate ads and search results for illicit sales of Viagra and other popular drugs.

No one from Google, Justice or the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is commenting publicly on the negotiatons.