Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak joined another 17 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against YouTube and its parent Alphabet for allowing the rampant Bitcoin giveaway scams using his images and videos to lure potential victims.
As first reported by Coindesk, the lawsuit was filed on Tuesday with the Superior Court of the State of California, and the tech entrepreneur is demanding punitive damages, a trial by jury, and an immediate action to remove all the scams involving his name.
Scammers receiving millions with these giveaway scams
Indeed, the number of crypto scams have skyrocketed on YouTube. Scammers play previously recorded interviews of tech personalities and billionaires and run fake giveaway scams, asking users to send some crypto on a wallet address, and they will receive double the amount.
Finance Magnates earlier reported that Bitcoin vanity addresses related to scams involving Elon Musk had gathered over $2 million from victims. These scammers are also using the name of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, and every other possible tech billionaires.
YouTube is also facing a similar lawsuit from Ripple Labs and its CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, for the rising XRP-related scams on YouTube and the inaction of the video-sharing platform on them.
“[YouTube] featured a steady stream of scam videos and promotions that falsely use images and videos of Plaintiff Steve Wozniak and other famous tech entrepreneurs, and that have defrauded YouTube users out of millions of dollars,” the recent lawsuit alleged.
Recently, Twitter was hacked, and official accounts of several billionaires, politicians, celebrities, and even companies were compromised, promoting Bitcoin giveaway scams, but the micro-blogging company promptly shut its service, thus restoring everything in a few hours.
“In stark contrast, for months now, Defendant YOUTUBE has been unapologetically Hosting , promoting, and directly profiting from similar scams,” the lawsuit added.
Meanwhile, Google, Facebook, and Twitter are also facing a $600 million class-action lawsuit in Australia for their ban on cryptocurrency ads imposed in 2018.
