Google Restrict Tech Support Ads

Google Restrict Tech Support Ads: Google has began restricting the ads for tech support services ahead of rolling out a verification program to deal with the rising levels of fraud enabled by advertising on its search platform.

The search giant Google claimed that they have successfully taken down more than the 3.2 billion ads that violated its advertising policies: amounting to over 100 per second.

“Today, we are taking another step. We have seen a rise in the misleading ad experiences stemming from third-party technical support providers and have decided to begin restricting ads in this category globally,” he explained.

“For many years, we have consulted and worked with law enforcement and government agencies to address abuse in this area. As the fraudulent activity takes place of four platforms, it’s increasingly difficult to separate the bad actors from the legitimate providers. That’s why in the coming months, we will roll out a verification program to ensure that only legitimate providers of third party tech support can use our platform to reach consumers.”

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It’s yet unclear that what form the verification program could take, although the Google has previously implemented such schemes to fight fraudulent ads for the local locksmith services and addiction treatment centers. It is also claimed that they have banned the ads for payday loans and bail bond services.

Tech support scams that have been around for many years, and all rely to an extent on tricking the user into paying for services they don’t need — sometimes even downloading info-stealing malware onto their computer in the process.

Often these scammers come from cold callers that they are pretending to be a technician at Microsoft or various ISPs, but user can also be scammed by the fake security alert pop-ups on their screen if they visit a compromised web page.