• Six decisions of the President of UOKiK for non-cooperation with the Office. Fines for influencers totalled PLN 139,000.
• These are the first sanctions in the proceedings conducted by the President of UOKiK.
• Recommendations concerning the tagging of advertising content on social media and further actions coming soon.
• Tag commercial content correctly on social media. Updates on our profile on Instagram.

As part of ongoing investigations into the tagging of commercial content on social media and suspicion of scam, the President of UOKiK addressed dozens of leading influencers, collecting information on the functioning of the influencer marketing industry and verifying whether influencers properly tag commercial content on social media. Unfortunately, several of the authors questioned did not provide the information or documents requested by the Office.

"We are conducting several activities simultaneously with regard to the influencer marketing market. As part of the investigations, we examined the profiles of the most popular influencers and their contracts, checking the terms of cooperation and arrangements with advertisers - brands and marketing agencies. We checked, among other things, what the specific reasons for negligence in the tagging of sponsored posts are - when it is the creator who is to blame and when the hiding of the advertising nature of the content is required by the ordering party itself. Therefore, it was necessary to obtain the creators' answers to specific questions or to have them send us relevant documents," says President of UOKiK Tomasz Chróstny.

Lack of cooperation with the Office

The aim of these activities is to change the social media advertising market and eliminate negative practices that are harmful to consumers. "We were counting on the goodwill of online creators but some of them failed to answer the questions we asked, avoided providing specific documents or information, or did not receive the correspondence. Lack of cooperation in the course of proceedings is a serious infringement as it may hinder the process of proving the use of an unlawful practice and significantly prolong the process of establishing the facts," added the President of UOKiK.

Failure to respond has legal and financial consequences - it is a breach of provisions and can result in a financial penalty of up to EUR 50 million. Taking all the circumstances into account, the President of UOKiK issued 6 decisions to punish influencers for non-cooperation. The fines totalled PLN 139,000.

Fines were given to:

• Kruszwil Marek Kruszel – PLN 50,000
• MD Marcin Dubiel – PLN 25,000
• Maffashion Julia Kuczyńska – PLN 30,000
• Paweł Malinowski – PLN 20,000
• Marcin Malczyński – PLN 10,000
• Marley Marlena Sojka – PLN 4,000

The decisions are not final. The influencers may appeal to the court.

Recommendations concerning influencer marketing

The President of UOKiK is conducting consultations with industry organisations and marketing agencies to develop recommendations for social media users with regard to the tagging of commercial content. The Office also spoke to the users themselves on the UOKiK profile on Instagram. The discussion was also joined by academics – the Faculty of Journalism, Information and Bibliology at the University of Warsaw and the Department of Press Systems and Press Law at the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism at Adam Mickiewicz University.

"We consult widely on our recommendations because we care about different perspectives. We want to orient the market accordingly by showing real-life examples. Our Norwegian counterpart has prepared similar content. At the same time, for the time being, we are not going to regulate, like the Scandinavians, the issue of e.g. the use of photo retouching in marketing posts," explains Tomasz Chróstny, President of UOKiK. "An influencer is a creator of content that influences their community. It does not matter if they post on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram or other platforms. When we go to a shop, our goal is clear - to buy various products. When we surf the net and peep into the lives of our favourite celebrities, we do not want them to subliminally sell us, for example, creativity-enhancing shoe insoles that they have not even tested," adds the President of UOKiK.

Consumer support:

Phone No. 801 440 220 or 22 290 89 16 – consumer helpline
Email: porady@dlakonsumentow.pl
Consumer Ombudsmen – in your city or county
Provincial Inspectors of Trade Inspection

Additional information for the media:

UOKiK Press Office
Pl. Powstańców Warszawy 1, 00-950 Warszawa, Poland
Phone +48 695 902 088, +48 22 55 60 246
E-mail: biuroprasowe@uokik.gov.pl
Twitter: @UOKiKgovPL