Considered as the best currency investment in the last 1,200 years and the best investment of the decade by the CNN, Bitcoin is indeed one of the most popular cryptocurrency out there.
There are lot of people who are willing to do just about anything to get their hands on Bitcoins, and as a result of this, malicious actors are even scamming people from their hard-earned investment.
After the more recent scam on Twitter that saw many prominent figures hacked to promote a Bitcoin scam, YouTube too experiences incidents where scammers have used its platform to promote similar scams.
And here, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is suing the video-sharing giant and its parent company Google for allegedly allowing those kinds of Bitcoin giveaway scams that use his likeness to thrive on its platform.
Wozniak and 17 other plaintiffs have filed the lawsuit, which seeks punitive damages, a trial by jury and demands for YouTube to remove all Bitcoin giveaway scams and promotions using Wozniak’s name and likeness.
The suit that was filed by Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP in the Superior Court of the State of California, includes screenshots of videos advertising "5,000-BTC” and “10,000-BTC" giveaways from Wozniak, which include images of the Apple co-founder.
The suit also alleged that the image and likeness of others, including well-known entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Michael Dell, were also being exploited in the scams to “convince” users into transferring their cryptocurrency by promising that, for a limited time, they "will receive twice as much back".
The suit also praised Twitter as an example of acting "swiftly and decisively" to shut down malicious accounts and "protect its users from the scam".
In its case, Twitter that acknowledged the situation about an hour after it began, quickly tweeted from its support handle to inform about the case and to also apologize. The company eventually locked all verified accounts from tweeting while it looked into the incident, a measure that happened for more than two hours.
"We all feel terrible this happened," said Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. "We’re diagnosing and will share everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened."
And this suit by Wozniak and others, referenced those Twitter's quick responses to counter the attacks, and stop it from further spreading.
All that, while defendant YouTube "has been unapologetically hosting, promoting, and directly profiting from similar scams,” the suit added.
"YouTube and Google took the further step of promoting and profiting from these scams by providing paid advertising that targeted users who were most likely to be harmed," the suit said.
Wozniak said that he has been trying to get Alphabet’s Google and YouTube to prevent videos of the scam with his name and picture in it from spreading since May 10. But the site can’t seem to stop them from repeatedly reappearing, he said.
\Wozniak and one of his lawyers, Joseph Cotchett, urged U.S. lawmakers to confront Google CEO Sundar Pichai about why YouTube hasn’t done more to stop this kind of fraudulent activity on the site.
Wozniak is accusing defendants YouTube and Google of violating his right of publicity, misappropriating his name and likeness, as well as aiding and abetting fraud, and negligent failure to warn users.
"Defendants’ failure to warn was willful, malicious, oppressive, fraudulent, and/or in reckless disregard of the Plaintiffs’ rights, thereby entitling Plaintiffs to punitive damages," the suit said.
The suit demands a trial by jury on all issues triable, and damages that include legal expenses, and any "gains, profits, or advantages wrongfully obtained by Defendants."
20-CIV-03032 by CoinDesk on Scribd
Wozniak is not the first to take action against YouTube over cryptocurrency scams.
Earlier this 2020 for example, Ripple Labs, along with CEO Brad Garlinghouse, sued the platform for allegedly failing to effectively police fake XRP giveaway scams that were causing monetary and reputational harm to the company.
For its part, YouTube said that it has removed 2.2 million videos and terminated 1.7 million accounts during the first three months of 2020 for violating its policies against deceptive practices. But it had no comment about Wozniak’s specific charges.
“We take abuse of our platform seriously, and take action quickly when we detect violations of our policies,” YouTube said in a statement.
