“The first sought to exploit public enthusiasm for generative AI to spread malware. The second weaponised the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to harm their business competitors by submitting thousands of blatantly fraudulent copyright notices,” the company’s General Counsel, Halimah Prado, said on Monday.
She pointed out that fraudulent Bard AI tools are being globally downloaded, whereas the authentic Google Bard does not necessitate any downloads.
In a lawsuit lodged in the Northern District of California, Google alleged that the scammers established social media accounts to encourage people to download a counterfeit version of Bard.
Upon downloading the file, users unwittingly installed malicious software on their devices, granting scammers access to their social media accounts.
Google is a multinational technology company that focuses on artificial intelligence, online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, and consumer electronics.
“As public excitement in new generative AI tools has increased, scammers are increasingly taking advantage of unsuspecting users. Our first lawsuit targets bad actors who misled numerous people around the world looking to use Google’s AI tools into unknowingly downloading malware. The fraudsters created social media pages and ran ads that encouraged people to “download” Bard, our freely available generative AI tool that does not need to be downloaded. The ads instead led people to download malware that compromised their social media accounts. Since April, we have filed roughly 300 takedowns related to this group of bad actors.
“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,” Prado said.
The company added that the actions taken are part of its ongoing legal strategy to protect consumers and small businesses and establish needed legal precedents in emerging fields of innovation.
“Clear rules against fraud, scams, and harassment are important — no matter how novel the setting — and we’re committed to doing our part to protect the people who use the internet from abuse.
More broadly, we hope these efforts protect and preserve the unprecedented culture of innovation in the United States. Just as A.I. fraudsters and copyright scammers hope to fly under the radar — we believe that appropriate legal action and working with government officials puts scammers squarely in the crosshairs of justice, promoting a safer internet for everyone,” it added.
