Danish regulator fines Obsidian Media DKK 400,000 for fake product tests

Denmark’s Consumer Ombudsman, Torben Jensen, said on 15 October 2026 that Obsidian Media ApS will pay a fine of DKK 400,000 for hidden advertising and fake product tests on five websites. The company admitted that it broke the Danish Marketing Practices Act. The fine is about €54,000. The Ombudsman’s press release is the source document for this story.

Obsidian Media never tested the products on its five sites

The sites were forbrugsguiden.dk, forbruger-test.dk, senge-testeren.dk (later sengeguiden.dk), bomagasinet.dk and bedste10.dk. They looked like independent consumer guides. Pages had “pros and cons” boxes and an “our assessment” section, which suggested someone had used the product.

According to the Ombudsman, nobody at Obsidian Media did. The company read other people’s tests, reviews and product specs and wrote its verdicts from those. It earned money from affiliate deals, where a shop pays a commission for each visitor sent its way. Readers were not told clearly about those deals.

Torben Jensen calls the case a gross breach of Danish law

Jensen called it “a gross violation of the Marketing Practices Act” (translated from Danish). He said people must be able to trust that something presented as an independent test really is one. The decision cites the rules against misleading claims and the duty to make the commercial purpose of marketing clear. The Ombudsman reported the company to the police in the summer of 2025. The sites were sold in September 2025, the press release says.

Obsidian Media hid the commission behind a consumer guide layout

The press release quotes the section of the act that bans hidden advertising. Any business must make the commercial purpose of its marketing clear. In this case, the Ombudsman found that the design of the five sites hid that purpose from readers.

The same type of “best of” site, built on search traffic and affiliate links, exists in most EU markets. Google’s search rules point the same way. Our report this week explained that Google punishes pages with no human work behind them. Earlier, Google also asked sites to check AI-written content by hand.

The fine lands on the publisher, but shops paid for the clicks. Sites that buy and test products themselves now have a regulator’s statement backing the difference. Brands that bought affiliate traffic from pseudo-test pages are left with partners whose reviews a regulator has called misleading.