The Federal Trade Commission voted 2-0 to ask the public a pointed question: should the advertising tools that social media, search and marketplace platforms sell be held accountable when scammers use them to impersonate legitimate businesses and government agencies? The agency announced the move on Sept. 24, 2026, as an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, the earliest and least binding step in federal rule-making.
Nothing is final. No platform has been told to change anything, and the commission has not said it will amend its existing rule. What it has done is open a formal comment period on whether ad-optimization features, the tools platforms sell to advertisers, are helping impersonation scams reach their targets.
The question the commission put to the public
According to the FTC’s announcement, the agency is considering whether to update its Rule on Impersonation of Government and Businesses, or to take other action, to stop platforms from engaging in ad-optimization practices that may further impersonation scams. It wants to know how far the tools and services that social media, search engines and other digital marketplaces offer advertisers help scammers pose as legitimate businesses and agencies in online ads.
Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, described the problem in terms of the ad business itself. Scams, he said, are now “powered by the same advertising and targeting tools that platforms sell to legitimate businesses.” The proposal asks whether platforms should be required to take concrete steps to prevent impersonation ads from ever reaching consumers.
The losses behind the proposal
The agency anchors the request in its own complaint data. In 2025 the FTC received more than 1 million reports about imposter scams, and consumers reported losing nearly $3.5 billion to them. Social media features heavily in that picture: nearly 30 percent of the people who reported losing money to scammers in 2025 said the first contact came on social media, and their reported losses totaled $2.1 billion.
Those figures are reports filed by consumers, which means they describe what people told the agency rather than a full audit of every scam. They are still the numbers the commission chose to open with, and they frame the platform question as one of scale, since social media alone accounts for the first contact in close to a third of the loss reports.
One gap in the public record is worth stating plainly. The announcement does not say when the notice will appear in the Federal Register, so the 60-day clock has no confirmed start date in the material the commission posted with its announcement, and the closing date for comments cannot be worked out from it. Anyone planning to file should watch the Federal Register document and the FTC’s comment page rather than count days from the September announcement. The commission’s Office of Public Affairs, at 202-326-2180, is the contact listed for press inquiries.
The impersonation rule and the FTC’s new questions
The rule at issue sits in 16 CFR Part 461. Section 461.2 bars materially and falsely posing as a government entity or officer, directly or by implication, and also materially misrepresenting a connection to one. Section 461.3 applies the same two prohibitions to businesses. Both are treated as unfair or deceptive acts or practices. The wording of both sections addresses the party doing the posing, and the new notice asks whether anything further should reach the platform that carries the ad.
The commission lists several things it wants to learn. It asks what financial incentives lead platforms to offer ad-optimization tools, how each tool changes the content and delivery of ads, and what steps platforms already take to prevent deceptive use. It asks whether these practices are widespread and whether the Commission should amend the existing rule, propose a separate rule or rely on non-regulatory measures. It also floats measures such as vetting advertisers, monitoring posted ads, investigating suspected scam ads, removing confirmed ones and disciplining advertisers.
Public comments and the Federal Register clock
The FTC’s notice page carries the document as Rule on Impersonation of Government and Businesses (ANPRM) and is dated Oct. 1, 2026; the full text is filed in the Federal Register as document 2026-20143. Comments are due 60 days after Federal Register publication, and the FTC says submitted comments will be posted to Regulations.gov, where submission instructions are also given in the notice.
An advance notice is a listening step. Even if the responses favor action, the commission would still need to publish a proposed rule, take another round of comment and issue a final rule before any platform faced a new obligation. The vote itself was unanimous, 2-0, which signals agreement on opening the inquiry but says nothing yet about the shape of any eventual rule. For now the agency has offered a framing and a set of questions, and the answers will come from platforms, consumer groups and anyone else who files.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
More from Morning Overview
- Doctors warn a silent liver disease now affects one in three American adults
- The FBI told the rest of ShinyHunters to surrender after a 24-year-old was arrested
- Two passengers died at an Ohio toll plaza, and the NTSB now wants the cash lanes shut
- Long use of a common prostate pill is tied to a higher chance of glaucoma
