Liam Clifford, director of Australia-based Global Visas – which employs solicitors and accredited migration consultants – said Google suspended his company’s ‘pay-per-click’ advertising after he was told he had broken the AdWords policy. He told local newspaper Lawyers Weekly the new rules encourage potential clients to bypass legal counsel.
The policy states that sites that charge for services associated with an official form or service must ‘provide a working link to the official source with equal prominence at the point of entry to the service’.
However, Mr Clifford said: ‘Our business will suffer as many users will become confused [about whether] they are on a government site or [that of] independent legal counsel.’
Mr Clifford added that the move will have a ‘profound’ impact on his and other legal business’ on-line advertising.
A Google spokesperson told Lawyers Weekly that although the company would not comment on individual advertisers, it does investigate complaints regarding violations of its AdWords Policy and ‘if we are notified of an ad violating our terms and conditions we will remove it’.