Taking legal action to protect users of AI and small businesses

By: Halimah DeLaine Prado

Today, we are initiating legal proceedings against two groups of scammers. The initial group aimed to capitalize on the widespread excitement surrounding generative AI by disseminating malware. The second group exploited the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as a weapon to detrimentally impact their business rivals, submitting thousands of overtly fraudulent copyright notices.

Ensuring your online safety is fundamental to our operations. Gmail consistently thwarts over 100 million phishing attempts each day, Safe Browsing safeguards more than 5 billion devices, and Google Play examines over 100 billion apps. In the ongoing battle against the latest scams, legal actions serve as a potent tool to establish legal precedents, disrupt the tools utilized by scammers, and heighten the repercussions for those engaging in malicious activities. Over the years, we have actively pursued litigation to halt scammers who exploit vulnerable individuals, deceive small businesses, and attempt to extort our users.

Safeguarding Users from AI Scams With the escalating public interest in new generative AI tools, scammers are increasingly exploiting unsuspecting users. Our initial lawsuit is directed at individuals who deceived numerous people globally seeking to utilize Google’s AI tools, leading them to unknowingly download malware. These fraudsters employed social media pages and advertisements, enticing individuals to “download” Bard, our freely accessible generative AI tool that requires no download. However, these ads instead directed individuals to download malware, compromising their social media accounts. Since April, we have initiated approximately 300 takedowns related to this particular group of malicious actors….

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