Sony BMG Google Ads Helped Support Major BitTorrent Site Isohunt

Google delivered ads for Sony BMG and other legal music companies have been helping to keep the lights on at the world's third largest BitTorrent site isoHunt.  Whlle Google has a policy of not supporting copyright infringement, these ads come via ad service reseller Ask.com and like all Google ads reflect the activity on the host site.  For isoHunt that includes music.

Jan-Henrik Ohme, head of digital marketing at Sony BMG in Scandanavia said in statement, “We have stopped the section of the campaign that goes to the third party until Google cleans up the issues. We have contacted Google, and they took immediate action."

Google delivered ads, while often effective, can also be notoriously hard to control.  That's a lesson a another major label learned last July when Hypebot used Google to place this negative ad on Columbia Records' flaghip site:

9270 negative impressions costing $4.14 later Columbia's site no longer includes Google ads.