Google Inc. (GOOG) Playing Race Card in Search Adverts?

In its statement, Instant Checkmate wrote, “Instant Checkmate would like to state unequivocally that it has never engaged in racial profiling in Google AdWords. We have absolutely no technology in place to even connect a name with a race and have never made any attempt to do so. The very idea is contrary to our company’s most deeply held principles and values.”

While racial bias can be a virus all its own, Google has issues with a different virus.

There were reports out Monday morning that many popular web sites accessed using the Chrome browser by Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) were being blocked by Chrome due to some malware that reportedly came from Netseer.com, which is an online advertising company based in Silicon Valley. The story is that the Netseer web site was hacked early Monday morning, but the firm claimed it was not sending out ads infected with malware.

Netseer spokeswoman Kathleen Formidori said, “This morning at approximately 5:30 a.m. Pacific time, our third-party hosted corporate website (netseer.com) was hacked and infected with malware. Consequently, Google added our domain to the list of malware affected website. Our operations team went into all-hands-on-deck mode and we have successfully cleaned the site of the malware issue.”

The company went on to add that the block by Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was installed because Netseer’s main web site and the ad-serving platform both used the same domain. Netseer insists that the hack and malware affected only the company’s main site.

DISCLOSURE: I own no positions in any stock mentioned.

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