Amul issues legal notice to Google over fake websites

Vadodara: The Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which markets brand Amul, has issued legal notices to Google India Pvt Ltd and internet domain registrar godaddy.com accusing them of misusing their platforms and earning revenues through advertisements, which has led to duping of several innocent people since September last year.
“We have served the legal notice to Google India for carrying paid advertisements of fake Amul websites,” said GCMMF’s managing director R S Sodhi.

“Some customers had approached us stating that they had paid money in the range of Rs three lakh to Rs five lakh based on the websites which they had searched on Google India. These customers wanted to get Amul’s distributionship, franchisee or parlours but were eventually duped because of the fake websites that were carried on Google India,” Sodhi told TOI.

Sodhi said that there are number of fake websites and advertisements in the name of Amul. “We have also filed a complaint with Gujarat cyber cell to investigate the matter,” he said, adding that Amul is hoping that before taking any paid ad for big brands like Amul, Google India should check background of the person who is placing the ad.

VG Barad, police inspector, cyber cell, said, “We received a complaint from Amul today, but an FIR is yet to be lodged as we are busy with Vibrant Gujarat preparations.”

Sodhi said that Google should check if the advertisement is genuine or not., lest people think they are paying money to Amul or similar other big brand and end up getting duped.

According to Amul, which issued the legal notice to Google India on January 10, a series of fake B2B campaigns regarding its parlours and distributors have started through fake websites using Google Search ads since September 2018.