Russian Anti-Monopoly Watchdog Monitoring YouTube
By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated May 11, 2018
Online casino content the subject of Russian video trade body complaint
Russian media reports indicate that the federal Anti-Monopoly Service is investigating a complaint from the Internet Video Association that YouTube is “repeatedly” violating Russian advertising laws by permitting the promotion of unlicensed online casino sites in the Russian language.
The Association, which represents intellectual property rights owners, has asked the watchdog to prosecute YouTube and/or owner group Google in order to curtail what it considers to be illegal conduct.
This is not the first time that the anti-monopoly service has been engaged to discourage the promotion of unauthorised Russian online casino sites; earlier this year the service instituted legal action against Google for failing to remove promotional material for an online casino group on its search facility.
In the broader sense, online casino promotion in Russia is likely to become more problematic this month when new federal laws come into force.
These require financial institutions to halt transactions with any online gambling sites not in possession of a Russian online sports betting licence, imposing tough punitive measures against such financial companies if they do not monitor the Roskomnadzor black list (see previous InfoPowa reports) and block transactions with individuals or operators on it.
Infopowa news was a staple of Casinomeister’s news from 2000 until 2019. Brian Cullingworth was the main writer, contributor, and was one of the most knowledgeable persons I have ever known involved in the online casino industry.
We first met in January 2001 at the ICE in London where I observed him going booth to booth interviewing online casino, software, and licensing jurisdiction representatives. Brian was also heavily involved with our forum as “Jetset“, he was involved as an informal consultant to eCOGRA, the OPA, and was a player advocate who assisted countless aggrieved players with his connections to industry folks. He also published “Casino Cautions” via Infopowa news for quite a number of years. These can be found in our news archives.
His passing in February 2019 was a dark day for us. He will be forever missed.
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