The European Commission published a study on financial fraud online on October 20. Open Evidence and Spark Legal and Policy Consulting carried it out for the Commission, and the work supports supervision under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The study does not assess how platforms fulfil their obligations.
The study divides fraud into six categories: investment, romance, online shopping, employment and collaboration, 'unexpected gain', and fraud using charity and disaster relief. According to the authors, investment and romance schemes are the most common and are growing fastest in Europe.
A separate section looks at the platform features fraudsters use. These include advertising systems, recommendation algorithms, monetisation, app stores, private messages and generative AI. The authors also describe how organised criminal groups sell tools that lower the barrier to entry for such schemes.
On gambling, the study points to a risk: platforms' advertising systems may allow unlicensed operators to promote their services in countries where they have no license.
A case in the Netherlands shows the scale of the problem. The association VNLOK, which represents licensed online operators, sued Meta in an Amsterdam court on September 28. By its own data, more than 90% of the gambling ads on Facebook that it checked led to sites that would be refused a license. Meta, according to VNLOK, removed 11% of such ads in May and 15% in June. That means most of the disputed ads stayed in the feed: between 85% and 89%.
VNLOK asks the court to rule that Meta violates the DSA. The association also asks for daily fines for non-compliance with any decision and has asked the European Commission to investigate. The court has not yet ruled.
For operators, the main takeaway is this: the European Commission explicitly calls its study a basis for ongoing regulatory work. What happens next depends on the Amsterdam court and on how the Commission uses the study's findings in overseeing platforms.
