NEW YORK (The Hill-WFLA-TAMPAHOY) – Google on Wednesday sued a group of cybercriminals whom it accuses of being responsible for illegal phishing scams that use the company’s branding to target account holders.
According to Google, the lawsuit filed with the Southern District of New York claims that more than 200 scammers have used Lighthouse software to impersonate reputable entities, such as E-ZPass and the United States Postal Service.
“The scam is simple: Criminals send a text message that prompts recipients to click a link and share information such as their email credentials, banking details, and more. They take advantage of the reputation of Google and other brands by illegally displaying our trademarks and services on fraudulent websites,” Hannah DeLaine Prado, Google’s general counsel, wrote in a company blog post explaining the lawsuit.
The company claimed that Lighthouse has harmed more than 1 million victims in more than 120 countries, stealing between 12.7 and 115 million credit cards in the United States alone.
DeLaine Prado claimed that more than 100 sites have used the Google logo to prompt users to log in or make payments, and that the lawsuit reviewed by The Hill tracked thousands of fraudulent websites developed between July 2023 and October 2024.
“We are a global company. This affects all of our users,” he said. “We are concerned about the damage to user trust and the lack of knowledge about which websites are safe,” he told NPR.
Although the company does not know who the scammers are behind the scheme, Google believes that many of those responsible are based in China.
Google is therefore seeking a declaratory judgment declaring the phishing activity supported by Lighthouse’s software illegal.
“It gives us a legal basis to go to other platforms and services and ask for their help in dismantling different components of this particular illegal infrastructure,” DeLaine Prado told NPR.
“Although we cannot reach individuals, the idea is to dismantle the infrastructure as a whole in some cases,” he continued.
In addition to taking legal action, Google supports three bipartisan bills targeting online scammers.
The company has endorsed the Protecting Unprotected Senior Retirees from Deception (GUARD) Act, introduced by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Katie Britt (R-Alabama).
The legislation would allow local police to use blockchain to investigate financial fraud targeting seniors.
Google has also endorsed two additional bills, including the Eliminate Foreign Robocalls Act, which increases efforts to block foreign robocalls, and the Scam Compound Accountability and Mobilization (SCAM) Act, which would require the Secretary of State and relevant executive branch agencies to address international compound scams that defraud people in the United States and pursue the transnational criminal organizations responsible for the scams. scams.
