Brazil's federal government is drafting rules to expand oversight of ads and boosted posts on digital platforms, with specific requirements for advertising of financial products and services. The measures sit in a draft joint ordinance from Senacon, the consumer protection office at the Justice Ministry, Sedigi, the national digital rights secretariat, and the digital policy office of the presidential communications secretariat, obtained by Folha de S.Paulo on Monday. The stated goal is to protect consumers who see ads and paid boosts, and to build mechanisms against misleading or abusive advertising.
Under the draft, the rules would cover providers that host third-party content and sell ads or boosting aimed at the Brazilian market, including companies based abroad. Marketplaces, services with editorial control and certain copyright-protected content providers would stay outside the specific scope, though they remain bound by Brazil's Consumer Defense Code. Today, whoever pays to boost a post can disappear without a trace; the proposal would force platforms to keep a record of who rented each ad slot.
What changes for platforms
The main change is a duty to store detailed information on ads and boosts for at least one year: the content shown, the product or brand, the advertiser's identity with a tax ID (CPF or CNPJ), the run period, the criteria used to target or exclude audiences, an estimate of people reached, associated payments and the links used. If an ad is suspended, the platform would have to log the date, the nature and the justification. Large providers would also have to run public repositories. Think of it as turning the ad desk into a notary office: every piece filed, dated and tied to the name that paid for it.
This did not start from zero. In July, according to Mobile Time, Senacon and Sedigi signed an agreement with Google Brasil to verify ads from banks, brokerages, lenders and insurers: those institutions must prove their identity, legal existence and authorization from regulators such as the Central Bank, the securities commission CVM or the insurance supervisor Susep, in an official registry that Google checks before approving campaigns. The agreement followed decree 12.975, issued in May, which makes platforms liable for fraudulent financial ads if they fail to act to prevent or remove them. The friction is easy to explain: platforms live on ad revenue, and verifying every advertiser costs money and can shrink the volume of approved campaigns. The expected pushback has a commercial motive.
What we still do not know
The document is a draft and may change before publication, which has no date yet. Folha is so far the only outlet with access to the text, and there are no public details on penalties for noncompliance, adaptation deadlines or the criteria defining a "large provider". No platform has publicly commented on the draft so far.
What to watch in the coming months: the official publication of the ordinance, any public consultations, and the standoff with Meta, Google and TikTok over the cost of verification. For readers, the practical rule does not depend on the ordinance: no serious investment needs an ad promising easy returns, and anyone selling credit or yields can be checked against the registries of the Central Bank, the CVM or Susep.