You don’t need to ‘download’ Google Bard; new lawsuit targets scammers trying to get you to do so

Ben Schoon | Nov 13 2023 - 6:57 am PT

Google has announced that it will pursue legal action against scammers attempting to mislead customers into trying to “download” Bard and other AI tools, with a lawsuit already underway.

In a post on The Keyword, Google discusses a lawsuit that will target scammers who have been placing ads and posts for Bard, the company’s generative AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT, that are designed to mislead users and trick them into downloading malware.

Google Bard doesn’t need to be downloaded, as it’s hosted completely online, for free, at bard.google.com.

The ads and social media pages in question largely try to trick people into downloading the “latest versions” of Google Bard, with the ads and pages instead pushing malware designed to infiltrate social media accounts on those unsuspecting users. Google says that it has filed over 300 takedown requests since April 2023 against the group that is pushing these ads and pages, and Google’s goal with this lawsuit is to put an order in place to stop this group from creating websites and obtaining domains.

Google explains:

We are seeking an order to stop the scammers from setting up domains like these and allow us to have them disabled with U.S. domain registrars. If this is successful, it will serve as a deterrent and provide a clear mechanism for preventing similar scams in the future.

As The Verge adds, the group is thought to be based in Vietnam and pushes the malware in part through Facebook pages and groups as well as uses paid Facebook promotion to put the malware in front of more users.

In the same blog post, Google adds that a second lawsuit is targeting DMCA abuse, where bad actors are using throwaway Google accounts to submit thousands of fake copyright claims against business competitors, which can result in website removal and high costs in fixing the situation.

Google says:

Our lawsuit targets bad actors who set up dozens of Google accounts and used them to submit thousands of bogus copyright claims against their competitors. These fraudulent claims resulted in removal of over 100,000 businesses’ websites, costing them millions of dollars and thousands of hours in lost employee time.