Google is making millions off ads reeling in addicts

Google cashes in on ads from shady UK companies that make millions from vulnerable people seeking addiction treatment, an investigation by the Sunday Times of London found.

The Web titan charges so-called referral agents up to $270 per click on ads that show up in its search engine, the paper reported.

The brokers can afford Google’s pricey rates because some private rehab clinics give them a cut each time a new patient is referred. That earns brokers as much as $27,100 a month in commissions.

Google doesn’t take ads from these greedy middlemen in the US because the practice is against the law in several states.

But in the UK, Google rakes it in by creating bidding wars between rehab-referral agents. They bid up the price of Google ads for rehab clinics in the hope their ads get good positions in Google searches.

The practice was described to undercover reporters by executives at two of the UK’s leading referral agencies — including the founder of the Amy Winehouse Project drug rehab center in Florida.

“Some might say it’s highly unethical,” Daniel Gerrard, the head of Addiction Helper, the UK’s largest referral agency, told the undercover scribes, who posed as executives for a new rehab center.

Addiction Helper made 295 referrals last October, or a “f–kload,” as Gerrard’s partner put it.

Critics say the referrals increase treatment costs for defenseless addicts.

Conservative Parliament member Sarah Wollaston told the Sunday Times that Google couldn’t justify making money off the promoted links, “especially as those desperate to tackle their addictions are unknowingly picking up the bill.”

The agents are “parasites targeting sick people at the most desperate time of their lives,” said Dominic McCann of the Castle Craig addiction hospital in Scotland.

While profiting off patient referrals is banned in several US states, Google still makes big bucks from Americans seeking help.

“Best mesothelioma lawyer” is the most expensive Google Adword, costing an average $935.71 per click, according to a 2016 analysis by the Web site Search Engine Watch.

Mesothelioma cases are valuable to the law firms that pay Google’s ad fees.

A 21 percent increase in Google ad revenue between July and September last year boosted parent company Alphabet’s profits that quarter to $27.77 billion.