It appears that Google’s (GOOG) purchase of YouTube gets more complicated by the minute. Two websites with pirated content claim that Google offered them advertising keywords including "bootleg" movie download" to help them market their services.
The problem crops up at the same time that Google is trying to convince major media companies that it can police its huge video site, YouTube, to screen out unauthorized feature content. Google is trying to form partnerships with companies like Viacom (VIA) and Disney (DIS) to share revenue on their content which would run on YouTube. Google would then share revenue from advertising connected with the content.
The fact that Google advertising representatives apparently helped the video pirate companies adds to the embarrassment of the incidents.
Google’s operations have become so vast that one hand often does not know what the other is doing. And, that may continue to hamper the big search engine’s attempted to turn YouTube into a financial asset instead of a liability.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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