Tonight, I decided to do some research on sexual addictions. In an effort to find a local chapter of SAA (Sex Addicts Anonymous), I typed “"sex addicts anonymous"+"Toronto"” into my Google.ca search box. Recently, search engines have taken to selling sponsored links. For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, they’re usually found on the right-hand side of your results page and contain line ads for products and services relating to your search. Sponsored links are a great way to bring in extra revenue for the company, however, shouldn’t someone be monitoring them? I would think that, with an enormous site such as Google, they would employ people to read and effectively position the ads. I’m soooo wrong. A list of three sponsored links came up, and right there, at the top, was an ad for an escort agency boasting “Toronto's premiere escort agency. See our ladies online photos!” with a link to their web site. Let’s not talk about the fact that the ad is grammatically incorrect, but it’s completely tasteless. Has the almighty dollar become so powerful that ethics and basic human concern are compromised in such an obscene and blatant way? I recall an episode of Law & Order (I’m a devout viewer – RIP Lenny), where an Internet porn company purchases lists of recently released sexual offenders and spams their inboxes with pornography. In this particular episode, it was a child rapist/murderer who received pictures of girls made to look as though they were underage. Due to the stimulation that he received from the photos, he raped and killed a young girl. Who is responsible? Google should be ashamed of themselves for their lack of regulation. It’s about basic human decency and giving a damn about people, not just how much they have in their wallets.

If you’re as pissed the hell off as I am about this, you can call their corporate office at (650) 623-4000 Or email their PR people at press@google.com

Your comments are welcomed.