More than a tenth of Google Ads promoting student relief plans push bogus services, according to a report released Wednesday by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), a nonprofit watchdog organization.
Scammers were behind 29, or almost 12%, of 242 ads investigated by the TTP, which found the ads violated Google’s policies or had “scam characteristics.”
The organization used “student loans,” “Biden loan forgiveness,” “student debt forgiveness,” “cancel student debt” and similar terms in its searches to find the ads. One advertised site was designed to look like a government agency, the TTP said.
The Federal Trade Commission says it’s “illegal for companies to charge you before they help you.”
“We prohibit ads that falsely imply an affiliation with a government agency, and have strict rules that govern financial services ads on our platforms, including policies against ads that fail to disclose associated fees or promote credit repair services,” said Michael Aciman, a spokesperson for Google.
“Google purports that it does not allow ads that push scams, yet we still see a range of malicious and predatory ads on the…
