Ofcom proposes £18M fines to force Big Tech scam ad crackdown
Ofcom has proposed a new fraudulent advertising code under the UK's Online Safety Act, mandating significant compliance measures for major digital platforms to identify and block scam advertisements. Non-compliance could result in substantial fines of up to £18 million or 10% of global revenue for failing to protect users from deceptive practices and AI-generated fraud.
Key Takeaways
- Platforms must ban bad actors and implement proactive measures to prevent scammers from creating new replacement accounts.
- Proposed rules require verification that advertisers for banking or investment services are registered with the Financial Conduct Authority.
- Non-compliant firms face potential fines of up to £18 million or 10% of global annual revenue, whichever is greater.
- The code specifically requires platforms to test and mitigate risks of criminals using AI advert-making tools to generate fraudulent content.
Why It Matters
The proposal shifts the legal burden from 'notice and takedown' to proactive prevention, potentially forcing a massive re-engineering of automated ad-serving stacks. For the streaming and digital video ecosystem, this signals a tightening regulatory environment where platforms are liable for the integrity of their programmatic pipelines. Any service with significant UK user numbers could face substantial overhead to meet verification and AI safety standards. Watch for Ofcom’s separate consultation in autumn 2026 regarding the specific 'proactive technology' requirements for filtering ads at the source.
Additional Context
The draft code marks a significant escalation in the UK's oversight of the £40 billion digital advertising market. According to Ofcom data from July 2026, roughly 51% of UK adults have encountered fraudulent ads online, with an estimated £200 million lost to such scams annually. While the Online Safety Act itself was passed in October 2023, this specific fraudulent advertising duty targets 'Category 1' and 'Category 2a' services—including Meta, Alphabet, TikTok, and ChatGPT—which must follow stricter transparency and accountability standards than smaller platforms.
Industry pressure has been building prior to this release. Per MoneySavingExpert, July 2026, consumer advocates recently petitioned the UK government to accelerate enforcement as AI-generated deepfakes become more prevalent. Recent examples include fake video ads featuring prominent figures like Nigel Farage, which circulated on platforms like X. Despite the regulator's call for immediate action, the current timeline suggests final decisions won't be set until mid-2027 following the closure of the consultation period on October 2, 2026.
This move aligns with broader regional crackdowns on tech giants. Per the Guardian, July 2026, the European Commission simultaneously demanded that Meta disable certain addictive design features, illustrating a coordinated push across Europe to regulate platform harms. In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has also intensified its own efforts, reporting in July 2026 that it issued over 2,300 warnings against unauthorized firms in the past year while working with Ofcom to harmonize digital fraud protections.
Read full article at advanced-television.com
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