Poland has accused Meta of failing to appropriately handle fraudulent and scam ads and urged the EU commission to impose a fine.
The Polish government has urged the European Commission (EC) to hand Meta a €250m (roughly £215m) fine for its failure to tackle fraudulent and scam ads on its platforms.
This comes almost a year after leaked internal documents showed Meta had projected that 10% of its overall annual revenue for 2024 – roughly $16bn – came from running ads for scams and banned goods. This included fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos and banned medical products.
The Polish authorities conducted its own investigation and subsequently accused Meta of publishing fraudulent ads and failing to take them down, even after being notified.
Polish digital affairs minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said at a press conference: “We have hard evidence that the platform isn’t acting in the best interests of users, but rather in its own self-interest, which allows it to monetise deceptive advertising.”
The minister cited testing done by CERT Polska, Poland’s national cybersecurity incident response team, which identified 122 ads classified as fraudulent. In 106 cases (86%) reported, Meta made the decision to keep the ad live, with only 10 ads removed, and six cases with no response.
Meta must also “immediately introduce effective tools to eliminate scams, false advertising, and the promotion of illegal applications,” the minister urged. A joint action would “demonstrate that we have strong arguments and are determined to curb Meta’s actions”.
Gawkowski confirmed he will use the upcoming G20 summit to persuade EU leaders to come together to speak out against Meta’s failure to act,
“The time has passed for us to say ‘improve yourselves’, they say ‘we are improving’, but citizens still don’t feel it. Now the time has come for penalties,” Gawkowski continued.
The proposed fine of €250m, Gawkowski argued, could “constitute a real and deterrent enforcement measure”.
A Meta spokesperson told Affiliate Leaders the company doesn’t want scams on its platforms. “They harm the people and businesses who rely on us. We’re working hard to stop them and continuing to engage constructively with the European Commission and regulators as part of this shared effort.
“Scammers are persistent criminals who use increasingly sophisticated tactics. That’s why we continue to invest heavily in technologies and partnerships – with industry and law enforcement – to find, remove and ultimately stop scammers, and last year removed over 159 million scam ads globally, 92% before anyone reported them to us.”
