Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Oct 06, 2025

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

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
×