Forgive a little gloating, but the Government has bowed to pressure and will legislate against online scam adverts in a fantastic win for anti-fraud campaigners including this column.
I’ve repeatedly told how platforms such as Facebook take money from criminals to promote their fraudulent websites, and finally action is being taken to stop them.
The Online Safety Bill is being changed to give Ofcom the power to hold companies to account by blocking their services or issuing fines of up to £18 million or ten per cent of annual turnover if they continue to carry fraudulent adverts. The Government's announcement is here.
Social media giants are not happy, but then they’ve only got themselves to blame.
They’ve had plenty of chances to clean up their acts but putting measures in place to tackle fraudulent advertising but have failed repeatedly.
Their industry body, Internet Advertising Bureau, greeted the news of the proposed changes by moaning: “The Online Safety Bill has not been subject to industry consultation.”
So far as I can tell, everyone else is delighted.
Martin Lewis of Money Saving Expert tweeted: “This huge change is a relief”, while Which? tweeted: "This is a major win in our fight to #StopOnlineScams."
Mike Haley, chief executive of fraud prevention service Cifas also welcomed the move.
“In the earlier proposed version of this Bill, criminal activity could have avoided falling under the scope of the Bill by merely paying to place the content online – a significant loophole that this addition has closed,” he said.
“By putting responsibility on major online platforms to prevent fraudulent adverts, in addition to tackling user-generated fraud already covered by the Bill, we hope to see levels of fraud plummet.”
Liz Field, Chief Executive of investment association PIMFA, said: “We are delighted to see the Government has seen sense and is willing to act to save thousands of people from the threat of fraud, which is after all, the widest reported crime in the UK today.”
Also calling for the new measure were the Financial Conduct Authority, Financial Services Compensation Scheme, Bank of England, and the Treasury Select Committee and many MPs.
I told in September how Facebook and Google admitted at a Parliamentary inquiry that they had not compensated a single person who’d fallen victim to scam ads on their platforms.
Facebook, aka Meta, Twitter and Microsoft announced in January that they would only carry savings adverts placed by companies registered with the Financial Conduct Authority, but they did not say when they would make the changes and, thankfully, the move was not enough to stop calls for a new law.
“We want to protect people from online scams and have heard the calls to strengthen our new internet safety laws,” said Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries.
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