Ripple has ended its lawsuit against YouTube for the social media platform’s alleged complicity in a spate of fake XRP giveaway scams, CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced on March 9.
Ripple and Garlinghouse filed a lawsuit against YouTube LLC in April 2020, claiming that the platform itself had profited from the fraudulent activity, and that it had failed to exercise its administrative powers to stop it. Garlinghouse announced on Twitter on March 9:
“Last year, @Ripple and I sued @YouTube for failing to enforce its own policies by allowing fake accounts (impersonating my/Ripple’s verified accounts) to conduct XRP giveaway scams. We’ve now come to a resolution to work together to prevent, detect and take down these scams.”
The scams relied on spear-phishing attacks, where a user’s account would be commandeered and its content erased. The account would then be set up to look like a prominent cryptocurrency figure, such as Garlinghouse himself. A fake XRP giveaway would then be…