EU consumer groups accuse Google, Meta and TikTok of letting scam ads slip through

European consumer groups have filed complaints against Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL), Meta Platforms (META), and TikTok, saying the companies are still letting financial scam ads reach users. The complaints were filed on Thursday by the European Consumer Organisation, known as BEUC, and 29 member groups from 27 countries.

The case has been sent to the European Commission and national regulators under the EU Digital Services Act. That law makes large online platforms deal with illegal and harmful content more seriously.

BEUC says fake money ads are still showing up on major platforms, even after users report them. The group says people can lose hundreds or thousands of euros when fraudsters push fake investment offers, crypto-style traps, and other online schemes.

BEUC says Google, Meta and TikTok let fraudsters keep reaching European users

Agustin Reyna, BEUC’s director general, said Meta, TikTok, and Google are not removing scam ads early enough. He also said they do too little after being told about the scams.

“Meta, TikTok and Google not only fail to proactively remove fraudulent ads but also do little when being notified about such scams,” Agustin said.

He said the danger is not small because fraudsters can reach millions of people in Europe every day.

“If they fail to address the financial scams circulating on their platforms, fraudsters will continue to reach millions of European consumers daily, leaving people at risk of losing hundreds to thousands of euros to fraud,” Agustin said.

Google rejected the complaint. A company spokesperson said the filing gives the wrong picture of how Google handles scam ads.

“This complaint misrepresents how we fight scams and is inherently flawed. We take extensive measures to keep scams off our platforms, blocking over 99% of policy-violating ads before they are ever seen,” the spokesperson said.

Meta also rejected the claims. The company said it found and removed more than 159 million scam ads last year. Meta said 92% of those ads were taken down before any user reported them.

“We invest in advanced AI, tools, and partnerships to stop them,” a Meta spokesperson said.

EU weighs chip sanctions delay as tech firms put $125 million into AI semiconductor work

These scam advertisement complaints were occurring amid speculation that the European Union may offer a temporary exemption to a Chinese semiconductor supplier affected by Russian-backed sanctions.

According to Bloomberg, the exemption may be announced in the coming days. This Chinese company forms part of the sanctioned group approved last month, in addition to other Chinese companies. The Chinese ministry of commerce rejected the sanctions package.

The EU was asked to hold back on implementing the ban because European automakers had not yet been able to establish alternative supply chain sources for the Chinese semiconductor supplier, and risked running out of chip supplies in the coming weeks.

In the US, Broadcom Inc. (AVGO), Meta Platforms Inc. (META), Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT), GlobalFoundries Inc. (GFS), and Synopsys Inc. (SNPS) support the $125 million Semiconductor Hub at UCLA Samueli School of Engineering.

The hub will focus on AI chip research, chip design, manufacturing, equipment, software, and workforce training. It will begin with a five-year commitment. Faculty members and student researchers will work with the companies on ways to bring chip ideas to market faster.

Ah-Hyung “Alissa” Park, dean of engineering at UCLA Samueli, said the future of the chip industry is still unclear.

“Nobody, including industry, know[s] what a semiconductor industry [is] going to look like in 10 years,” Alissa said. “But can we continue to ask [the] most challenging, difficult questions, and high-risk, high-return kind of questions? That’s what we are hoping to do, because this conversation is happening [in a] very sluggish way.”

The funding also covers yearlong internships for engineering doctoral students with the same partner companies. The launch comes while AI keeps changing the job market and tech companies cut staff. Meta is set to start another round of layoffs this week, cutting 8,000 jobs, or about 10% of its workforce.

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