Bing has added alerts to their search results when someone triggers a search for a pharmaceutical with other keywords that shows intentions to purchase it.

When you click the “learn more” page, it takes you to the landing page for the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies, a consumer protection group supporting legitimate pharmacies online.

While Viagra is often considered the most popular online pharmaceutical, it is also showing up for things like Cialis and Cymbalta.

But there are many other prescription drugs that do not trigger the warning.  And “buy” seems to be the only associated keyword that triggers these alerts – searches that include “online”, “store” and “shop” do not trigger these alerts.

These results are exclusive to Bing.  Even though Yahoo uses Bing’s search results, Yahoo does not display these alerts for searches on Yahoo.com.  And Google does not have their own version of this alert in their search results.

This is an interesting addition to the search results, but one has to wonder if it has any impact in deterring purchases from non-legitimate pharmacies or at least prompt people to consider their alternative options for buying prescription drugs.  It could potentially impact those companies that do sell pharmaceuticals online through a non-legitimate pharmacy, however I suspect most people shopping for prescription drugs online are more concerned about pricing or not needing a prescription than they are about the legitimacy of where they are purchasing it from.