TechDigits

Tech news
Friday, Mar 29, 2024

UK ministers urged to make tech giants responsible for scams

UK ministers urged to make tech giants responsible for scams

Coalition of organisations including City of London police and Which? demand social media sites vet adverts
A coalition of organisations including City of London police and the consumer body Which? is demanding the government make tech giants such as Google and Facebook legally responsible for fake and fraudulent adverts.

In a joint letter to the home secretary, Priti Patel, the 17 organisations have urged ministers to force search engines and social media sites to vet all adverts they publish to protect the public from an “avalanche” of scams involving investments and other financial offers.

They want the government to include online scams in its proposed online safety bill, which is expected to be presented to parliament in the Queen’s speech on 11 May.

Scams and fraud have escalated over the past year as locked-down consumers spent more time online. Some end up losing money after using search engines to research investments at a time of record-low interest rates, while others have been tricked by adverts on social media sites. Many scams involve cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin or schemes that claim to offer early access to pension pots.

Scammers employ an array of tricks such as using fake celebrity endorsements from the likes of the TV adventurer Bear Grylls and MoneySavingExpert.com founder Martin Lewis to lure in victims, as well as setting up fake websites and impersonating legitimate ones.

Official figures from Action Fraud show that £1.7bn was lost to scams in the last year, while the banking body UK Finance said there had been a 32% increase in investment scam cases in 2020.

David Postings, the chief executive of UK Finance, said: “It’s not right that online giants are effectively profiting twice – once from criminals marketing scams on their platforms, and again from organisations having to advertise fraud warnings to consumers.”

The regulator Financial Conduct Authority is not one of the signatories to the letter, but it has made similar calls – and has repeatedly singled out Google for criticism over this issue.

In a speech in June last year, the FCA’s chair, Charles Randell, said a framework was needed to stop tech giants from promoting unsuitable investments and scams to ordinary retail consumers, adding: “It is frankly absurd that the FCA is paying hundreds of thousands of pounds to Google to warn consumers against investment advertisements from which Google is already receiving millions in revenue.”

Last September the FCA again name-checked Google and said it believed there was a strong case to include fraud within the online safety legislation, “given the FCA’s limited power to take down advertising by those seeking to scam people via the internet”.

Coincidentally, Google on Friday announced new measures in this area, saying it would be developing and rolling out further restrictions to financial services advertising in the UK over the coming months. Details have not been revealed, but it could require that an advertiser is registered by the FCA.

Google also pledged $5m (£3.6m) in advertising credits to support public awareness campaigns by UK industry organisations and government bodies that are targeting financial scams, and the company has joined Stop Scams UK, a group set up last year by 12 telecoms and banking firms.

The letter from the 17 organisations – which also include MoneySavingExpert.com and the charity Age UK – said online platforms “play a pivotal role in enabling criminals to reach and defraud internet users through the hosting, promotion and targeting of fake and fraudulent content on their sites, including adverts that they make significant profits from”.

The letter states that the tech giants must be given a legal responsibility to prevent, identify and remove fake and fraudulent content on their sites.
Newsletter

Related Articles

TechDigits
0:00
0:00
Close
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The future of sports
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Poor Man With Money, Mark Zuckerberg, Unveils Twitter Replica with Heavy-Handed Censorship: A New Low in Innovation?
The Double-Edged Sword of AI: AI is linked to layoffs in industry that created it
US Sanctions on China's Chip Industry Backfire, Prompting Self-Inflicted Blowback
Meta Copy Twitter with New App, Threads
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Refiled, Naming Coinbase as ‘Surveillance-Sharing’ Partner
UK Crypto and Stablecoin Regulations Become Law as Royal Assent is Granted
A Delaware city wants to let businesses vote in its elections
Alef Aeronautics Achieves Historic Milestone with Flight Certification for World's First Flying Car
Google Blocked Access to Canadian News in Response to New Legislation
French Politicians Advocate for Pan-European Regulation on Social Media Influencers
Melinda French Gates Advocates for Increased Female Representation in AI to Prevent Bias
Snapchat+ gains 4 million paying subscribers in its first year
Apple Makes History as the First Public Company Valued at $3 Trillion
Elon Musk Implements Twitter Limits to Tackle Data Scraping, but Faces Criticism for Technical Misunderstanding
EU and UK's Slow Electric Vehicle Adoption Raises Questions About the Transition to Green Mobility
Top Companies Express Concerns Over Europe's Proposed AI Law, Citing Competitiveness and Investment Risks
Meta Unveils Insights on AI Usage in Facebook and Instagram, Amid Growing Calls for Transparency
Crypto Scams Against Seniors Soar by 78% in 2022, Experts Urge Vigilance
The End of an Era: National Geographic Dismisses Last of Its Staff Writers
Shield Your Wallet: The Perils of Wireless Credit Card Theft
Harvard Scientist Who Studies Honesty Accused Of Data Fraud, Put On Leave
Putting an End to the Subscription Snare: The Battle Against Unwitting Commitments
The Legal Perils of AI: Lawyer Faces Sanctions for Relying on Fictional Cases Generated by Chatbot
ChatGPT’s "Grandma Exploit": Ingenious Hack Exposes Loophole in AI, Generates Free Software Codes
The Disney Downturn: A Near Billion-Dollar Box Office Blow for the House of Mouse
A Digital Showdown: Canada Challenges Tech Giants with The Online News Act, Meta Strikes Back
Distress in the Depths: Submersible and Passengers Missing in Titanic Wreckage Expedition
Mark Zuckerberg stealing another idea: Twitter
European Union's AI Regulations Risk Self-Sabotage, Cautions smart and brave Venture Capitalist Joe Lonsdale
Nvidia GPUs are so hard to get that rich venture capitalists are buying them for the startups they invest in
Chinese car exports surge
Reddit Blackout: Thousands of Communities Protest "Ludicrous" Pricing Changes
Nvidia Joins Tech Giants as First Chipmaker to Reach $1 Trillion Valuation
AI ‘extinction’ should be same priority as nuclear war – experts
×