Last January, the Agcom Board, the Board of the Competition and Market Authority, unanimously adopted an injunction against the Meta company (the company that controls the social network services Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) for an amount equal to 750.000 euro. Reason: the violation of the advertising ban on gambling sanctioned by the 2018 Dignity Decree, which among other things provides for rules of contrast to gambling addiction. This was the first provision issued by the Authority against a social media platform for having allowed the dissemination of content in violation of the ban.
Among the reasons for the sanction the fact that Meta allows you to promote games with cash prizes to all its business customers who address the Italian public, also through the ad targeting advertising.
Indeed, it would have emerged that the company is responsible for not having foreseen any restrictions to advertising of games with cash prizes in their general conditions, intended for the Italian market and relating to the promotion of paid goods and services.
In recent days, the authority has further sanctioned Facebook for failing to provide clarifications on this violation. In particular, it is contested that the company has committed a violation of article 1, paragraph 30, of law 249/1997 pursuant to which "Persons who fail to communicate documents, data and information requested by the Authority are punished with the administrative fine from one million to two hundred million lire imposed by the same Authority” (emphasis added).
In fact, the company responded to the request for information well beyond the deadline imposed on it with a note of prot. no. 387353 of 7 October 2022 (i.e. 85 days after the deadline allowed by the Authority) without, however, giving reasons for this delay in any way. With specific reference then to the information transmitted, as already specified, the same are incomplete as it was not possible to identify the users of the Facebook platform, holders of the sponsorship contract relating to the sponsorships already sanctioned as in violation of article 9 of the dignity decree. This conduct is all the more serious in that it has not precluded the possibility of proceeding against the perpetrators of the offense ascertained with resolution no. 422/22/CONS in their capacity as clients of the advertising disseminated on Facebook.
