Google has agreed to expedite its removal of fraudulent advertising that targets users with falsified celebrity endorsements, following a meeting with Minister of the Interior Lin Yu-chang (林右昌), the ministry said in a statement yesterday.
Scam operators often buy misleading investment advertisements on Google, YouTube and other online platforms, which contain fake celebrity endorsements and links leading to fraudulent offers, Lin said.
“They use pictures and videos of celebrities to appear as if the ads were approved by them. Once unwitting users click on these links, they are guided to join group chat rooms set up by scammers on the Line app,” Lin said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
These methods and similarly misleading ad designs appear repetitively in users’ feeds, he added.
Consumers must be taught how to identify such scams, while Internet platforms must also immediately remove these ads once they are notified, Lin said.
The Criminal Investigation Bureau has provided Google with a list of 165 celebrities that have reported identity theft, with the aim of assisting the platform to quickly remove scam ads featuring their likenesses, Lin said.
Meanwhile, the bureau is creating a reference book featuring various forms of identified scam advertisements to help Google find and remove high-risk ads, he said.
The bureau and Google have appointed representatives to communicate with each other as issues arise, and to jointly organize workshops related to fighting online crime, Lin said.
Prior to Lin’s meeting with Google management in Taipei, the ministry also met with representatives of Meta, Line and e-Commerce operator MOMO, he said.
“We all agree that cracking down on scams is an urgent issue, and a precision attack on scam ads must be launched on popular platforms,” Lin said. “Through the joint efforts of government and the private sector, we can deter scams using more comprehensive approaches.”
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