Google facing penalty over Russia advertising breach

Online behemoth Google has today been told to discontinue all gambling related advertising in Russia with immediate effect after being accused of breaching the country’s advertising codes by publishing an ad for an online gambling product.

The warning came from Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) which in a statement released this morning said would now prepare an administrative offence case against Google, which is likely result in a financial penalty of between RUB100,000 (£1,200) and RUB500,000 (£6,000).

According to the statement, Google said the banned advertisement was likely to have been due to sophisticated advertising bots able to finds ways to bypass its AdWords filters.

“Unfortunately, in some cases questionable advertisers attempt to find holes in our filters by various means and sometimes they succeed,” a spokesperson for Google said. “We are constantly improving our system and working on the reliability of our filters,” the spokesperson added.

Although moves are underway to permit online sports betting in Russia, online gambling is broadly forbidden in the country and the advertising of real-money gambling products are outlawed by Russian authorities.

In August, leading Russian search engine Yandex found itself in similar hot water with the FAS after being found to have published adverts for sites belonging to PokerStars and Full Tilt.

Earlier this year, the Russian government kicked-off an online gambling crackdown and has compiled a blacklist of online operators who have continued to target its residents.