The Attorney General’s Office (AGU) sent an extrajudicial notice to Meta (the parent company of Instagram and Facebook) requesting the removal of illegal advertising from unauthorized online betting profiles in Brazil.
The action was carried out by the National Prosecutor’s Office of the Union for the Defense of Democracy (PNDD).
The AGU argues in the notification that Brazilian legislation (Law No. 14,970/2023 and Ordinance SPA/MF No. 1,207/2024) requires that so-called fixed-odds bets, such as online games and bets, be operated with prior authorization from the Ministry of Treasury.
Therefore, companies that have not obtained authorization from the Treasury are operating illegally. This also makes advertising their services and applications illegal. As a general rule, authorized websites must end with “.bet.br,” for example.
“This is, therefore, a clearly illegal activity (since these profiles are not authorized by the Ministry of Treasury). These profiles may also be linked to tax evasion, money laundering, crimes against consumer relations, fraud, and other illegal practices — constituting their advertising as an equally illegal activity,” reads an excerpt from the notification.
According to Federal Law 14,970/2023, online gaming is an electronic channel that enables virtual betting on a game in which the result is determined by the outcome of a random future event, from a random generator of numbers, symbols, figures or objects defined in the rules system.
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A search of Meta’s library identified hundreds of results for active ads from profiles that do not comply with Brazilian legislation.
In the document, the AGU also argues that in the recent decision on the constitutionality of article 19 of the Internet Civil Rights Framework, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) established that digital platforms are presumed to be liable in the event of illicit content when it comes to advertisements and paid boosts.
In these cases, companies must “prove that they acted diligently and within a reasonable time to make the content unavailable.”
In the notification, the AGU requests that the illegal advertising be removed within 48 hours. Furthermore, it requests that Meta refrain from promoting content that does not comply with the list of companies authorized to carry out online gambling activities.
The AGU also states in the document that, despite the company’s recent efforts, which include the promise to update its terms of use for game advertising, the verification process, in practice, still has flaws that need to be corrected.
