Google update – How much $$$ are we talking about?

~ Jason Schwartz

Bloomberg follows up on the recent stories about Google shutting  down addiction treatment related AdWords ads (emphasis mine):

Google has been actively pursuing profits from the business, despite complaints that it’s a magnet for criminals. There’s an entire sales division in Cambridge, Mass., Google Health Systems, that focuses on medical markets, including addiction treatment. It’s sent account executives to peddle AdWords and other services at addiction treatment conferences and webinars. Google may be raking in $1 billion or more a year from addiction treatment advertisers, according to Williams, who based the estimate on average marketing spending. (Google declined to comment on anything related to its revenue sources.) “I thought it just happened organically, that because it’s Google, it would naturally get a lot of companies that would pay to market,” says Aronberg. “I did not realize Google is actively courting the industry, suggesting the right keywords and going to conferences. That’s crazy.”

Published by Jason Schwartz

I have been an addiction professional and social worker since 1994. I started blogging in 2005 as the Clinical Director at Dawn Farm. I no longer work at Dawn Farm and am now the Director of Behavioral Medicine at a community hospital, and a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University’s School of Social Work. Views expressed here are my own. Keep in mind that the field, the contexts in which the field operates, and my views have changed over time.