The Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main (case 2-06 O 234/25) has ruled that Meta is liable for scam ads on Facebook and Instagram, even when third parties run them. The lawsuit was filed by German finance portal Finanzfluss and its founder Thomas Kehl. The judgment was handed down on September 16, 2026, and isn't final yet: Meta can appeal to the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt.
What happened
Since 2024, Facebook and Instagram had been running ads with the Finanzfluss logo and photos of Kehl. The portal had nothing to do with them: scammers ran the ads and lured people into private chats with dubious "investments."
In August 2024 alone, Finanzfluss sent Meta almost 260 reports. Removal after a report sometimes took up to 62 days, and new copies with different images and text kept popping up in place of the removed ads.
What the court ordered Meta to do
- Stop showing fake ads with Kehl's face and name and the Finanzfluss name.
- Pay damages for identical or similar fake ads in the future.
- Disclose information about which ads ran and how much Meta earned from them.
According to German media, Meta faces a penalty of up to €250,000 per violation of the injunction. This is a standard measure in German law to make sure court orders are followed.
Why the DSA didn't protect Meta
Meta relied on Article 6 of the EU Digital Services Act (DSA). It protects hosting providers: if a platform didn't know about illegal content, it isn't liable for it. The court rejected that argument.
The judges relied on a ruling by the EU Court of Justice from June 16, 2026 (cases C-188/24 and C-190/24): a provider is liable for content it controls. And Meta does control ads: it runs the auction itself, decides when and to whom an ad is shown, and steers the feed with its own algorithms. With a plain chronological feed, as on Mastodon or Bluesky, the outcome could be different.
What Meta says
The company disagrees with the ruling and is considering further steps. An appeal looks likely. Meta points out that over the past year it detected and removed more than 159 million scam ads, 92% of them before any user report.
This isn't the first such case in Germany. In March 2025, the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt ruled in a case brought by TV presenter Eckart von Hirschhausen that Meta must not only remove fakes after reports but also look for similar ads on its own.
What it means for affiliate marketing
Some channels are already writing about a "cleanup wave" in Europe and new filters. Meta hasn't officially announced anything like that, so for now these are media buyers' observations, not confirmed changes. But the direction is clear: if a platform can be sued over someone else's ads, moderation in the EU will only get stricter, especially in finance and investing.
- Other people's faces and brands aren't a grey area, they're a straight violation. Ads using celebrity photos and third-party logos without permission break the law, and now both the platform and whoever runs such ads are exposed.
- Working in Germany? Do it by the rules. A commercial website needs an Impressum with real company details, and finance offers need a license.
- Expect tighter reviews in the finance vertical across the EU, even if you run white campaigns.
The appeal will have the final say. But the precedent is set, and the "we didn't know" argument works less and less in Europe.