ÖIAT / Watchlist Internet

Monitoring online fraud, scam ads and consumer deception in the German-speaking EU; the Austrian Institute for Applied Telecommunications (ÖIAT) runs Watchlist Internet and conducts empirical studies of platform advertising, often for Austrian regulators.

Type: Nonprofit consumer-protection watchdog
Based in: Vienna, Austria
Focus region: Austria / EU

Visit Watchlist Internet

Investigation: 1
Platform tracked: 1
Active since: 2026
Latest report: Jun 2026

Topics covered

Ad Transparency & Fraud1
Platform Compliance & Governance1

Watchdog vs. platform

Publicly documented legal proceedings, access disputes, or other platform pushback. Allegations, findings, and outcomes are labelled separately and linked to their sources.

No sourced legal or practical dispute has been documented for Watchlist Internet yet. Know of one?

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Researchers

Current

Lena Müller-NaendrupResearcher1
Natalie TrellResearcher1
Valentine AuerProject Lead, ÖIAT Research1

Reports

Full database

2026

1 report

Jun 2026
Meta
Analysis of the Fraud Ecosystem of Online Advertising on Meta Platforms
The ÖIAT analyzed Meta's Ad Library over three months and found 634,000+ fraudulent or problematic ads shown more than 1 billion times across the EU (123M in Austria). Illegal gambling (~450,000 ads), investment fraud (83,216) and dubious food supplements (27,171) dominated the sample.
Ad Transparency & FraudPlatform Compliance & GovernanceArt. 39 — Ad transparencyArt. 26 — Ad labelling
By Valentine Auer, Lena Müller-Naendrup and Natalie Trell