CNBC: These online volunteers fight fake reviews, ghost listings and other scams on Google Maps — and say the problem’s getting worse. “Tom Waddington was hanging out at a friend’s house when he got an unexpected notification from Google Maps. Waddington is part of a group of Google Maps advocates who are trying to improve the service, so he lets Google track his location and frequently adds photos or edits to Maps listings. So the notification itself was routine, but the message was strange: Maps wanted him to contribute information about the Urgent Care center nearby. He was in a residential neighborhood.”
scams
Reuters: Google unveils vetting process for drug rehab ads
Reuters: Google unveils vetting process for drug rehab ads . “Google told Reuters Monday it would resume accepting ads from U.S. addiction treatment centres in July, nearly a year after the Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) unit suspended the lucrative category of advertisers for numerous deceptive and misleading ads.”
The dots do matter: how to scam a Gmail user (James H. Fisher)
James H. Fisher: The dots do matter: how to scam a Gmail user. “I recently received an email from Netflix which nearly caused me to add my card details to someone else’s Netflix account. Here I show that this is a new kind of phishing scam which is enabled by an obscure feature of Gmail called ‘the dots don’t matter’. I then argue that the dots do matter, and that this Gmail feature is in fact a misfeature. Finally I’ll suggest some ways the Gmail team can combat such scams in future.”
CNN Money: The biggest Black Lives Matter page on Facebook is fake
CNN Money: The biggest Black Lives Matter page on Facebook is fake. “For at least a year, the biggest page on Facebook purporting to be part of the Black Lives Matter movement was a scam with ties to a middle-aged white man in Australia, a review of the page and associated accounts and websites conducted by CNN shows.”
Federal Trade Commission: FTC asking for access to your computer? It’s a scam.
Federal Trade Commission: FTC asking for access to your computer? It’s a scam.. “Scammers pretending to be with the FTC or with FTC refund administrators are calling, asking for remote access to your computer. It’s been reported that the scammers are calling specifically about the FTC’s Advanced Tech Support refund program. Their goal is to make you think you are moments away from getting money that’s owed to you – and, to get the money, all you need to do is allow them to connect to your computer. It’s a scam.”
University of Cambridge: Online tool can measure individuals’ likelihood to fall for internet scams
University of Cambridge: Online tool can measure individuals’ likelihood to fall for internet scams. “The psychometric tool, developed by researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Helsinki, asks participants to answer a range of questions in order to measure how likely they are to respond to persuasive techniques. The test, called Susceptibility to Persuasion II (StP-II) is freely available and consists of the StP-II scale and several other questions to understand persuadability better. A brief, automated, interpretation of the results is displayed at the end of the questionnaire.” The language in the interpretation is fairly academic. I’m not sure how useful this would be to the layperson.
Los Alamos Daily Post: AG Balderas Warns New Mexicans About New Facebook Scam In Wake Of Massive Facebook Privacy Breach
Los Alamos Daily Post: AG Balderas Warns New Mexicans About New Facebook Scam In Wake Of Massive Facebook Privacy Breach. ” Attorney General Hector Balderas issued the following scam alert Thursday warning New Mexicans to be extra cautious about people pretending to be able to help them with their Facebook data in the wake of the Facebook privacy breach. On the heels of the furor over Facebook’s sharing of subscriber data, new Facebook scam artists are calling people in New Mexico, attempting to access data the subscriber may not wish to share.”
