Google has failed to stop “shyster” websites advertising on its search engine, despite promising to fix the problem, the BBC has found.
Adverts for unofficial services selling government documents such as travel permits and driving licences are against Google’s own rules.
But the BBC found adverts for expensive third-party sellers every time it searched during a 12-month period.
In a statement Google said it had taken down billions of rule-breaking adverts.
In the UK, changing the address on your driving licence is free – but Google consistently showed adverts for services charging £49.99.
Applying for an Esta travel permit to visit the US should cost no more $14 (£10) – but Google repeatedly allowed adverts for websites charging more than $80.
In Google’s search results, adverts look similar to organic results and appear at the top of the list.
Websites like these are not illegal and customers may still get the documents for which they have applied.
However, some of the companies charge more than five times the amount that the official websites do.
“They are not scams, they’re shysters,” said Martin Lewis, founder of the website Money Saving Expert.
“They’re not stealing your money, they’re charging you a fee for something that is completely pointless.”
Some justify their prices by offering support to anybody struggling with an application.
Advertising such services is against Google’s own policies.
In October 2018, the BBC brought several adverts to Google’s attention that broke its rules.
A month later, Google told the BBC it had developed a machine learning system that could prevent the adverts appearing again.
At the time, it only banned adverts for third-party services that charged more than the official government website.
However, in May 2020 it changed its policy to ban “adverts for documents and/or services that can be obtained directly from a government or a delegated provider” including “offers of assistance to obtain these products or services”.
Since that change, the BBC has repeated the same set of Google searches on seven separate occasions over a 12-month period.
Every time, there were adverts for expensive third-party services when searching for:
Esta
US Esta
apply for Esta
US visa
Canada ETA (a travel document for Canada)
apply for Canada ETA
apply for Canada visa
apply for Australia visa
apply driving licence
renew driving licence
driving licence change address
Some of the websites continued to appear in the adverts even after they were flagged to Google with its reporting tools.
