[thimabi]

Recently, my grandmother got herself scammed when trying to pay her bills, because she clicked a Google search ad for a fraudulent website posing as the local gas company. She lost some money and, of course, some of her personal data as well.

When situations like this happen, I mostly place the blame on ad companies. It’s their product, so it should be their responsibility to prevent abuses. But there is scant regulation, and the ad industry itself has little concern for privacy and data protection. Why would it waste money being proactive and effective against malicious ads?

It is nice to see the government recommending ad blockers. However, it bothers me that it is up to us, users and customers, to deal with the negligence of ad companies.

[meowster]

I wonder what would happen if you (she) sued Google.

[thimabi]

I wonder too, but suing is expensive and demands some time that we don’t have. Yet we did notify the cybercrime team at the police department, so maybe they will do something about it.

[meowster]

If the amount is/was under the small claims court level, that would be a vastly cheaper and easier route to take. Rules vary by state, but I believe generally you cannot select an arbitrary amount lower than the monetary threshold just to use small claims court, but you might be able to argue Google has 50% or some other culpability if that will get the amount under the threshold. IANAL.