Indian Ministry asks Google to comply with advisory on surrogate ads of betting companies

 In recent news, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has reportedly asked Google to comply with the advisory issued by the Ministry on surrogate advertising of betting and gaming companies.

The advisory was issued in May of this year and outlined guidelines for the advertising of betting and gaming companies. The advisory was created to protect vulnerable sections of society, including children and adolescents, from the potentially harmful effects of such advertising.

The Ministry has asked Google to comply with the advisory and to remove all content related to betting and gaming companies from its platforms. Google has reportedly agreed to comply with the advisory, though there has been no formal announcement from either party yet.

The Ministry has also asked Google to ensure that all advertisements related to betting and gaming companies are removed from its platforms. This includes advertisements from third-party websites and apps that are hosted on Google’s platforms.

The advisory issued by the Ministry is in line with the existing laws and regulations governing advertisements of this nature in India. It is important for companies to comply with these guidelines in order to protect vulnerable sections of society from the potentially harmful effects of gambling.

Google’s compliance with the advisory is a welcome step, as it will ensure that betting and gaming companies are not able to target 

Earlier, the Ministry had issued an advisory in this respect and sources claimed that TV channels and OTT (Over-the-top) players stopped showing surrogate advertisements of online betting firms. However, it was brought to the notice that many such ads were running on YouTube and Google.

In light of the significant financial and socio-economic risk for the consumers, especially youth and children, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on October 3 issued two advisories, one for private television channels and the other for digital news publishers and OTT platforms strongly advising them to refrain from showing advertisements of online betting sites and surrogate advertisements of such sites