Meta urged to verify Facebook advertisers to rein in dodgy ads

“While the requirements for online advertisements are less prescriptive, ASIC considers that best practice for online advertisements involves disclosing licence details and, where applicable, comparison rates,” he said.

“Where consumers see advertisements that don’t include these details, they should treat them with caution.”

Meta in Australia does not check whether advertisers have the relevant financial services licence before allowing them to use Facebook to advertise financial products.

In a response to the concerns about the ads, a Meta staff member said in an email to McPharlin that while individual ads could be reported, “advertisers are responsible for understanding and complying with all applicable local laws and regulations, including ensuring that they are authorised by the relevant authorities and that they provide disclosures required by law”.

Meta did not respond to a detailed list of questions on its policy in Australia. However, a spokesman said that the examples of the dodgy ads sent to the company by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald had been removed from Facebook.

“All advertisers that promote financial products and services must adhere to our policies and follow local applicable laws,” he said. “We’ve removed the content for violating our policies.”

Google recently introduced rules in Australia requiring financial services advertisers to be externally verified and demonstrate that the relevant regulator directly authorises them to undertake financial services activities before they show financial services ads.

In the UK, Meta recently made it mandatory for any advertiser that wants to run ads promoting financial products or services on Facebook to be registered with the UK Financial Conduct Authority.

ASIC is now encouraging Meta to adopt a similar policy in Australia.

“In August this year, Google implemented a policy requiring verification for advertisers promoting financial products and services to ensure they are authorised by ASIC. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has a similar policy in the UK, but has not implemented such a policy in the Australian market,” an ASIC spokesman said.

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“ASIC encourages digital platform providers, including Meta, to adopt policies requiring the verification of those advertising financial products and services, as evidence from other jurisdictions suggests that such policies significantly disrupt scam activity and misleading and deceptive advertising.”

McPharlin also said that these kinds of changes should be considered by Meta’s Australian team to enhance consumer safety.

“I think [Meta] provide a fantastic tool suite for advertisers to be able to reach the consumers they want,” he said.

“But it’s challenging for consumers to understand … the validity of who those advertisers are. I think that’s essential to this issue, it’s such an anonymous black box as to who these advertisers are, how they decide to target you, whether they are legitimate. It really brings into question the entire ecosystem.”