Dairy products major, the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF), which owns the Amul brand, has issued a legal notice to Google India on fraudulent practices by individuals and organisations using the latter's platform.

Legal notice was issued to Google India Pvt Ltd on January 10 regarding individuals/ organisations using the Google platform for fraudulent practices. Google India operates as a non-exclusive re-seller of Google LLC's AdWords programme in India. R. S. Sodhi, Managing Director, GCMMF said, "They (Google) have benefited from Google Search advertising campaigns, which are being misused to scam innocent individuals in the name of Amul in India."

It is learnt that a series of fake B2B campaigns regarding Amul Parlors, distributors have been circulated through fake websites using Google Search ads since September 2018. This made fake promises of business opportunities with Amul. "Many Indians across the country and age group have been robbed of their hard-earned money," he said.

Notably, in a statement, Amul said it had raised this issue with Google India and had sought their help to stop such miscreants from using their platform through paid advertisements. "It has been observed, Google Ads platform is allowing such miscreants to use its paid promotion services repeatedly without any background checks and, in the process, earning revenues from the click-based advertising on their page," an Amul statement said.

"This has led Amul to issue a legal notice to Google India and goDaddy.com, holding them accountable for misuse of their platform and earning revenues through advertisements (subscription in the case of godaddy.com) on their platform on account of innocent individuals across India," it said.

Amul ran a promoted ad on Google Search to educate customers against such fake campaigns and had a dedicated page talking about it.

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