Search engine giants to pay fines for promoting online gambling

Three of the dominating search engine companies Microsoft, Yahoo and Google have now agreed to pay in fines a sum of 31.5 million dollars to settle a government probe.

The probe was related to these companies promoting online gambling back in the 1990s.

This probe was part of the US government’s crackdown on Internet gambling. A lot of Americans are now said to be involved in gambling outside the USA through the internet.

Microsoft itself is paying around 21 million dollars. Yahoo is paying 7.5 million dollars. Google has a smaller role in the probe and they would be paying 3 million dollars.

US Attorney Catherine Hanaway spoke on these new developments: “These sums add to the over 40 million dollars in forfeitures and back taxes this office has already recovered in recent years from operators of these remote-control illegal gambling enterprises. Honest taxpayers and gambling industry personnel who do follow the law suffer from those who promote illegal online behavior.”

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