Less accessible, if being a YouTube TV subscriber is a prerequisite (US only). Gotta pump up those subscription numbers, I guess.

Well, your examples are phishing via email. There's a lot of that going on. Just look for "To: undisclosed-recipients:" in your mail headers.

SMS as well, I imagine. And "impersonating organizations like the IRS or the U.S. Postal Service" is pretty easy, given the weak security of our wireless infrastructure. And there are legitimate "mass SMS broadcasters", so that by itself isn't new either.

what bothers me is that Google is seeking grounds to go after these people extra-judicially. I just don't trust them not to abuse such powers.

Well, Google cares. Or should care, since they are (supposedly) selling them a secure environment. But probably the easiest solution is a bit of public service announcement user education:

Do not click on in-message links. Go to the official home page and log in from there.

Movie theater seats would be a better analogy. We can seat the entire town. But we will only show what our parent company has produced.

Good point. I left that out of my list.

We have also elected officials to be empowered with the responsibility for enforcing laws. Nobody elected Google. And 'we' have put the collective rope and tree approach to law enforcement behind us.

I hope so. The Chinese group doesn't appear to be using any of Google's resources for their scams*. They aren't the Internet Police or the telecom police. If they want to play cop, I'll put a cap pistol and tin sheriffs badge under their Christmas tree.

*It seems to me that Google needs to keep their GMail users from emailing out scams first. John 8:7.

So then, nothing to do with Google account takeover. Your last statement was in error then?

SMS and other mobile technologies are notoriously insecure (read up on SS7). Anyone who requests my phone number for 2FA deserves to have their accounts pwned.

... is SMS traffic to/from my mobile devices any of Googles concern?

Buy an ad.

Why a single location? Do you want one movie theater in town?

Perhaps we need to look back at the antitrust cases, a major one involving Paramount. But now it's Netflix becoming the vertically integrated giant. Let multiple streaming companies, theaters, CATV operators and DVD producers bundle and sell studio content as they see fit. Thus allowing the consumer to select the package that is best for them.

Absent that, either Paramount or Netflix should be required to spin off their streaming business from production as a condition for acquiring Warner Brothers content.

Why just pick on Meta? YouTube is also a haven for scam advertising. That robot AI puppy ad has been running for *weeks*, despite thousands of people reporting it and tweets to @teamyoutube on X who simply say "leave it with us, we'll look into it" -- yeah, on what timescale?

The reality is that big-tech is not interested in protecting users of their services, they're only interested in the bottom line and a scammer's money is as good as anyone's.

How is it that YouTube can take down *millions* of videos and masses of channels for "scams and deceptive practices" yet can't act in a timely fashion when blatant scam ads infest the platform?

It's not because they can't, it's because they choose not to -- and that ought to make them every bit as culpable as Meta.

In fact, I think there's an argument that if, after being made aware that an ad is a scam, the platform continues to run that ad then they should be charged with conspiracy to defraud and face criminal charges. That might smarten-up their responses a little.

Things are OK. Eh.

Rabbit ear antenna?

So, play the TikTok card. French email clients to be owned by the French. Or crazy punitive laws will be passed.

What's good for the goose ...

Elon should just have blocked X in the EU.