By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS, May 21 (Reuters) – Alphabet’s Google, Meta Platforms and TikTok were hit with complaints from European Union consumer groups on Thursday for allegedly failing to protect users from financial scams on their platforms, putting them at risk of regulatory fines.
The move highlights growing pressure worldwide on Big Tech to do more to address the negative impacts of social media, particularly for children and vulnerable users.
The complaints, filed by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and 29 of its members in 27 European countries, were submitted to the European Commission and national regulators under the Digital Services Act, which requires large online platforms to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content.
“Meta, TikTok and Google not only fail to proactively remove fraudulent ads but also do little when being notified about such scams,” BEUC Director General Agustin Reyna said in a statement.
“If they fail to address the financial scams circulating on their platforms, fraudsters will continue to reach millions of European consumers daily, leaving people at risk of losing hundreds to thousands of euros to fraud,” he said.
Google and Meta rejected the complaints and said they work proactively to protect their users.
A Google spokesperson said: “”This complaint misrepresents how we fight scams and is inherently flawed. We take extensive measures to keep scams off our platforms, blocking over 99% of policy-violating ads before they are ever seen.”
Meta said it found and removed over 159 million scam ads last year, 92% before anyone reported them. “We invest in advanced AI, tools, and partnerships to stop them,” a spokesperson said.
TikTok said it takes action against violations, adding that scams are an industry-wide challenge while bad actors constantly adapt their tactics.
The consumer groups, meanwhile, said they reported nearly 900 ads suspected of breaching EU laws between December last year and March this year but the platforms only took down 27% of the ads and 52% of the reports were rejected or ignored.
The groups urged regulators to investigate whether the companies were complying with the rules and to impose fines for breaches.
DSA fines can reach as much as 6% of a company’s global annual turnover.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, additional reporting from Inti Landauro; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Nick Zieminski)
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