"Nano Banana" Search on Portal Brings Fake Sites to the Top

Redirects to Lookalike Sites Upon Click
Representative Listed as Chinese... Company Introduction Also in Chinese
Users Should Beware of Payment Scams

#An office worker in their 30s, referred to as Mr. A, searched for "Nano Banana," Google's image-generating artificial intelligence (AI) model, on the portal site Naver and accessed the site that appeared at the top of the search results. The site claimed users could upload images or enter prompts to generate AI images, but the layout and menu descriptions felt somewhat awkward. After signing up and attempting to generate an image, a pop-up appeared stating that credits had to be purchased, requiring a subscription to a plan costing $14.9 per month (about 22,000 won). It turned out that this was a so-called "scam" site unrelated to Google, merely using the name Nano Banana.

There are growing concerns that Naver's search advertising product, "Power Link," is causing inconvenience for users by exposing sites with unclear origins at the top of search results. Power Link operates by displaying the site name, address, and direct link at the top of the page when a user searches for specific keywords, with businesses or individuals selecting keywords for advertising purposes.

Search results for 'Nano Banana' on Naver. Naver Capture

On February 3, when "Nano Banana" was entered into Naver's search bar, three sites appeared at the top of the results, each named "Nano Banana AI," "Nano Banana 2," and "Nano Banana Pro." Even when searching for "Nano Banana" on Google, the developer of the model, similar sites appeared in the search results.

These sites include the keyword "Nano Banana" in both their site names and addresses, and use banana images as their logos. They also feature prompt input fields for generating or editing images. To the average user, these sites could easily be mistaken for the official Nano Banana site.

However, all of these sites are unrelated to Google, the developer of Nano Banana. Nano Banana can only be used through Google's generative AI service, Gemini. The scam sites, using the Nano Banana name, generate images via publicly available application programming interfaces (APIs) for external image-generating AI. Some of these sites claim to use external AI models for image generation, but do not disclose which models are being used.

A similar site to Nano Banana that induces charges. Site capture

The main issue with these sites is that they induce users to make payments. All three sites require users to pay between $6.9 and $39.9 per month to receive credits for image generation after exhausting a limited number of free attempts. Considering that Google's Nano Banana can be used for free through Gemini, there are concerns about potential consumer harm. In fact, posts have been found on blogs and online communities from users who requested refunds after making payments to these sites.

Given the unclear identities of these sites, it is also difficult to expect protection of users' personal information or AI-generated content. Upon reviewing the privacy policies of these sites, it was found that they commonly collect a wide range of data, including users' names, emails, images uploaded for AI generation, prompts, and AI-generated images. The locations of the servers where the data is stored are also unclear. The sites are believed to be operated from China. One site listed a Chinese individual as the representative, and another site displayed a company introduction page written in Chinese.

Naver has stated that, under current regulations, it lacks sufficient grounds to block advertisements for these sites. A Naver representative said, "Since the trademark for Nano Banana has not been registered, it is difficult to restrict advertisements solely on the basis of using the same name for a service," adding, "Naver will take action if cases of user harm are reported or if abuse is determined." The representative continued, "Naver operates a separate channel for reporting inappropriate advertisements, and if abuse is confirmed, we take immediate measures such as removing the ads from exposure. For this service as well, we will immediately restrict advertisements if any issues are identified."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.