Google has filed a lawsuit against a cybercrime organization that was using Gemini to power its financial scams, while Google is also pushing for stricter laws that are more relevant to an AI era.
The New York Times reports that Google has sued a China-based cybercrime network which, apparently, was using Gemini to “blast financial scams to hundreds of thousands of Americans.” The network, known as “Outsider Enterprise,” allegedly used Gemini to create fake websites mimicking Google and YouTube, as well as government operations such as the US Postal Service and New York’s E-ZPass service.
In a post on The Keyword – which never explicitly mentions that the scammers were using Gemini models – Google explains the scale of the organization:
- Hundreds of thousands of victims have been financially scammed with losses estimated in the millions.
- 9,000 fake websites and over 1 million fraudulent URLs connected to this group.
- 55,000 spam texts were flagged by Android users in just two weeks this past May — that’s more than two text spam complaints a minute.
- 2.5 million messages were sent by the Enterprise to Android users containing links to Outsider-generated websites over this two-week period.
The lawsuit isn’t Google’s only action against AI-powered scammers. The company is coordinating with major US carriers and the FBI to shut down the cybercrime network, including blocking texts before they reach customers.
The sheer scale of this is a good reminder – AI is a powerful tool for good, and for bad.
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