UK Treasury Committee asks Microsoft, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok about scams
The Chair of the Treasury Committee has today written to four more tech giants requesting details on their plans to combat fraud and protect consumers online.
In letters to Microsoft, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok, the Committee Chair, Rt. Hon. Mel Stride MP, requests information on their policies to combat scams and protect consumers online.
The letters include several questions. The first set of questions concerns expenditure by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and other public bodies on the particular platform to protect consumers.
The Committee would like to know how much has the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) paid TikTok/Microsoft/Twitter/Snapchat in each of the last three years (2019, 2020 and 2021) to warn users of the online channels about unauthorised advertisements and user-generated content.
The tech giants are also requested to respond to questions about their advertising policy. In particular, the Treasury Committee is interested into whether tech giants require firms advertising financial services on their platforms to show that they are authorised by the FCA.
Other questions concern the amount of revenue Microsoft/Twitter/Snapchat/TikTok have earned in each of the last three years from paid-for advertising for financial services offered by firms which are not authorised by the FCA.
Let’s recall that last month, the Committee published letters from Google, Facebook, Amazon and eBay on their plans to tackle online fraud.
In its letter, Google explains it is investing significantly in measures to prevent scams from taking place on its platform and has worked closely with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) over the last 18 months to do so.
Google says that, in order to support the FCA on the most effective response and their future work in this area, it has offered to provide a $3m ads credit to them, for use on its platform, to help amplify their message to protect consumers from scams.
Google has pledged a further $2m in ads credits to support industry scam awareness campaigns. As pat of this commitment, alongside other tech platforms in the Online Fraud Steering Group, Google has offered credits to support “Take 5”, the scam awareness campaign run by UK Finance.