Google accidentally uncovers Chinese car theft scam in its ads

Searching and throwing up relevant results, organising our mail and spying on our every move - is there anything Google can't do? Apparently, it can now add uncovering crime rings to its already impressive resume.

According to an article on The Verge, Google was reworking its ad-filtering model when it found something suspicious.Their new model was flagging a lot of otherwise inconspicuous ads for cars as fakes.

"We'd never heard of a counterfeit car," said AdWords engineering director David Baker told the website.

It turned out that though they weren't counterfeit cars, they were ads for stolen cars. The scam artists would take photos of cars on the street, and when a would-be costumer showed up to 'purchase' the stolen car, the stolen car would be sold to them. The racket is apparently a well-known one in China.

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[caption id="attachment_986819" align="alignleft" width="380"] Google logo. AP[/caption]

Experts who spoke to The Verge said that it's no surprise - the people behind these scams are 'very professional' and have found a model that works with the need of the Chinese costumer to actually see the item before deciding whether to purchase it or not.

This isn't the first time Google has fought crime. Its Street View has been used in several cases by law authorities. Last year, AP also reported that Googlehad been quietly turning its search capabilities to fighting criminals, as drug cartels, money launderers and human traffickers run their sophisticated operations online.

Read the full article at The Vergehere.

With inputs from AP.