To combat rising fraud, the Federal Trade Commission may update a rule that could make technology companies more liable when fraud occurs.

The Federal Trade Commission is fielding comments from the public this month on the possibility of making big technology companies more responsible for policing scam posts.

The federal agency would do that by updating its rule that bars the impersonation of government and business officials to defraud consumers. The agency said in September that it was mulling the possibility as part of an effort to better protect consumers from proliferating online advertisements and online posts that attempt to defraud consumers and all too often succeed.

They’re weighing in on the possibility of the agency drawing technology companies into a shared responsibility for fending off fraud.

Consumers lost $16 billion to fraud last year, including about $3.5 billion in imposter schemes reported by more than one million people, the FTC said in its initial notice exploring a rule update proposal. The overall losses were 25% higher than in 2024, it added.

“We’re living in the golden age of fraud,” said Mayer Brown attorney Arun Rao, a former Justice Department deputy assistant attorney general who co-authored a firm post about the FTC proposal.

“The (proposed rule) modification is a response to the proliferation of these types of fraud schemes over the last couple of years, and to try to change the way in which responsibility is assessed, through that rule,” Rao said in an interview last month.

While consumers and banks have absorbed many of those losses, the FTC suggested in its proposal to update the rule that it’s time for the tech owners of online platforms that enable the crimes to step up their efforts to combat the scams.

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