New Google Release New Maps Feature To Help Businesses Report...

Google on Thursday said it's rolling out a dedicated form to allow businesses listed on Google Maps to report extortion attempts made by threat actors who post inauthentic bad reviews on the platform and demand ransoms to remove the negative comments.

The approach is designed to tackle a common practice called review bombing, where online users intentionally post negative user reviews in an attempt to harm a product, a service, or a business.

"Bad actors try to circumvent our moderation systems and flood a business's profile with fake one-star reviews," Laurie Richardson, vice president of Trust & Safety at Google, said. "Following this initial attack, the scammers directly contact the business owner, often through third-party messaging apps, to demand payment."

The threat actors warn of further escalation should the victim fail to pay the fee, risking potential damage to their public rating and reputation. These ploys are seen as an attempt to coerce merchants into paying the extortion demand.

Google has also warned users of other kinds of scams that are prevalent today -

To counter these schemes, users are advised to be wary of unexpected delivery texts or emails that demand a fee, exercise caution when approached by people who claim they can recover funds, download apps only from trusted sources and legitimate developers, and be vigilant when asked to fill out sensitive personal information.

The development coincides with a report from Reuters, which found that Meta is making billions of dollars every year from ad marketing scams and illegal products on its platform. Citing an internal December 2024 document, the British news agency said the scam ads could account for as much as 10.1% of its overall revenue, or approximately $16 billion.

Meta allowed "high value accounts" to "accrue more than 500 strikes without Meta shutting them down," Reuters reported, adding "a small advertiser would have to get flagged for promoting financial fraud at least eight times before Meta blocked it."

In addition, the company is said to have charged bad actors higher rates more to run ads as a penalty, as they accrued more strikes, only banning advertisers if its automated systems predict they are 95% certain to be committing fraud. On average, Meta is estimated to have served its platforms' users an estimated 15 billion "higher risk" scam advertisements every day.

In response, Meta said the 10.1% estimate was rough and overly-inclusive, and that it has removed mo

Source: The Hacker News