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Scammers impersonate well-known businesses or government agencies in ads in your social media feed, your search results, and on your favorite shopping platforms. They hope you’ll think they’re the real thing and click on their imposter ad. The FTC is exploring additional ways to help protect consumers from these ads and we want to hear from you.

Social media, search engines, and shopping sites use sophisticated search optimization tools to help create and target ads based on things like your age, browsing history, and online shopping habits. Companies pay to place online ads connecting you to their legitimate products and services. And now scammers are paying too — and people are losing big money. 

The existing Impersonation Rule prohibits the impersonation of government agencies and businesses. The FTC is currently considering updates to the Rule or a new rule to increase accountability for social media, search engines, and other digital marketplace platforms that further impersonation scams.

Do you think platforms should take concrete steps to prevent impersonation ads from ever reaching consumers? Should the FTC propose new requirements to address these practices? For example, requiring platforms to:

  • vet advertisers and ads before ads are posted; 
  • give people a way to report ads they think are impersonating a business or the government; or
  • investigate suspected impersonation ads and remove those that turn out to be scams.

You have until November 30, 2026 to review and comment online or in writing. Information about how to submit comments can be found here — we hope you’ll weigh in.

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