When dealing with entity impersonation vs. individual impersonation, what do you think is the Federal Trade Commission’s focus?
Let me give you a hint. The FTC “Seeks Public Comment on Whether to Update Rule on Impersonation of Government and Businesses to Address Platforms’ Role in Promoting Impersonation Scams.”
If you’er an individual who is a victim of an impersonation scam, turn somewhere other than the FTC. Although individuals perform “trade,” they don’t perform as much as governments and businesses.
And governments and businesses definitely have a problem, according to Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
“Free markets depend on trust, transparency and consumers’ ability to make informed choices. Impersonation scams—especially when amplified by digital platforms that profit from them—do more than rob Americans of their hard-earned money. They erode the very foundation that allows competitive markets to function. Today’s impersonation scams are no longer the work of isolated con artists; they are sophisticated, highly engineered operations powered by the same advertising and targeting tools that platforms sell to legitimate businesses. Consumers reported nearly $3.5 billion in losses to impersonation fraud last year, and the true cost is likely far higher.”
Let’s look at four key words in Mufarrige’s statement: “digital platforms that profit.”
We see this all the time, and in all sorts of circumstances. Someone allows someone else to do bad things, and when the authorities catch the second person, the first person says, “Not my problem.”
We can argue about whether the enabler is responsible. The gun dealer that sells the gun that kills the kid. The bank that processes the funds from terrorism. The third party that allows a hack of a first party’s data. Or (in this case) the platform that enables the impersonation scam to take place.
Well, the FTC is definitely going after the platforms that profit from the funds provided by the impersonators. Oh, and these platforms are an oligopoly, and in this case the Administration doesnt’ like oligopolies.
“Increasingly, consumers rely on a small number of dominant digital platforms for everyday transactions—from shopping, banking and travel bookings to accessing government services. Yet these platforms are the very places fraudsters seek out consumers, exploiting their trust while platforms profit from optimizing and disseminating scam ads.”
And you know how this is going to turn out. Marky Mark and the like are going to majestically pronounce about freedom of speech and how it’s inappropriate for them to be the ones to restrict the speech of their users.
The truth is that the platforms already try to police what’s happening, but they are terrified of false positives, where someone is accused of being a scammer when they’re not. How would YOU feel if you received a message from your favorite social media platform saying “To comply with FTC guidelines, we are removing your post because it sounds like a scam.” The post: “I love Dolly Parton.”
Anyway, get our your Jiffy Pop and pop some popcorn. The fight is about to begin.
And if you want to get your technology company’s views heard during the fight, enlist some help from Bredemarket. I have the expertise to assist your company. See https://bredemarket.com/watch-book/.
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