In a sweeping effort to tackle online advertising fraud, Google has suspended more than 39 million scam advertiser accounts in the US alone over the past year — tripling the figures from 2023.
39 million scam accounts suspended by Google AI
This unprecedented crackdown highlights the growing role of artificial intelligence in policing digital ecosystems, especially as financial institutions and regulators intensify calls for Big Tech accountability in combatting online scams.
The search giant disclosed that, globally, it blocked 5.1 billion ads in 2024 and removed over 1.3 billion publisher pages, citing violations ranging from financial misrepresentation and healthcare disinformation to personalised ad misuse and impersonation fraud.
Among the most pressing concerns were deepfake scam ads impersonating public figures — a trend that surged during a record-breaking global election year.
To counter this, Google deployed more than 50 enhancements to its Large Language Models (LLMs), enabling faster, more accurate detection of bad actors.
These LLM upgrades improved the platform’s ability to flag red flags such as illegitimate payment details and fake business credentials during the account creation process — pre-emptively halting many fraudulent campaigns before a single ad was served.
“This kept billions of policy-violating ads from ever showing to a consumer,” said Google’s Ads Safety General Manager, Alex Rodriguez, during a media briefing.
He emphasised that despite the rapid expansion of AI tools, human oversight remains integral, with over 100 experts from across Google, including DeepMind researchers, contributing to the effort.
Deepfakes and Business Impersonation: A Growing Threat
One of the most pernicious forms of ad fraud involves the use of AI-generated deepfakes to impersonate trusted public figures, businesses, or government officials.
These scams have collectively cost US consumers nearly $3 billion in recent years, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
In response, Google launched more than 30 new ad policy updates and reinforced its Misrepresentation guidelines.
This effort led to the permanent suspension of over 700,000 advertiser accounts involved in such fraudulent campaigns — a crackdown that reportedly resulted in a 90% drop in complaints relating to deepfake scam ads.
Financial Services and Scam Mitigation
The payments sector has emerged as one of the hardest-hit domains.
In India — the second-largest internet market after China — Google suspended 2.9 million ad accounts in 2024, with top violations linked to financial service misrepresentation, gambling, and ad network abuse.
The company removed over 247 million scam-related ads in the region.
Globally, Google confirmed that 5 million of the advertiser suspensions were directly tied to scam-related violations, contributing to the removal of nearly half a billion scam ads across its platforms.
Mounting Pressure for Reimbursement Reform
Despite Google’s aggressive action, critics argue that tech firms are still the primary breeding ground for scam content online.
Financial institutions and fintech advocates continue to urge platforms like Google and Meta to assume greater financial responsibility — potentially through reimbursement schemes for scam victims.
In response to these pressures, Google has made transparency improvements to its enforcement practices, including clearer communication on policy breaches and an expanded appeals process featuring human reviewers.
Rodriguez acknowledged that past enforcement actions “left advertisers confused,” but stated that updated messaging and policy clarity had become a major focus for 2024 and beyond.
As financial fraud migrates online and becomes increasingly sophisticated, Google’s AI-led campaign against ad scams is likely to set the tone for broader industry standards in fraud prevention and platform accountability.
lets hope the folk at Meta get the memo…
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