Four key things Google admitted to the Feds

In one of the largest settlements of its kind in U.S. history, Google agreed to pay the U.S. government half a billion dollars for allowing its advertising system to be abused by Canadian Internet prescription drug peddlers illegally importing their wares into the country. The size of the settlement wasn't the only eye-opener in the case. The settlement agreement contained some surprises, too, especially in some admissions made by the company whose motto is "Do no evil."

Here are four of them.

1. Google knew Canadian pharmacies using its AdSense advertising platform were illegally selling prescription drugs to U.S. consumers and improperly assisted the drug peddlers in doing it.
2. Although Google knew the Canadian pharmacies were illegally selling drugs to Americans, the settlement revealed that Google "provided customer support to some of these Canadian online pharmacy advertisers to assist them in placing and optimizing their AdWords advertisements and in improving the effectiveness of their websites."
3. When Google did take action against online pharmacies selling prescription drugs to U.S. buyers, it ignored the fact that the system was being beaten by some pharmacies.
4. Google was aware that online pharmacies were exploiting the company's keyword system to end-run its pharmacy certification program but dragged its feet in cracking down on those exploiters.