Google handed €750,000 fine over Italian ad ban breach

Google has been hit with a €750,000 fine by the Italian communications watchdog AGCOM for breaching Italy’s Dignity Decree regarding gambling advertising.

The California-based company has been slapped with the fine over the publication of gambling advertising on YouTube.

The ads, for an operator Spike, were created by TOP ADS which has also been fined €700,000 by AGCOM.

AGCOM ordered the removal of 625 pieces of illegal content on YouTube, as well as the closure of spikeslot.com within seven days.

At the time of writing, spikeslot.com was still accessible and live, as was the Spike YouTube channel.

In its ruling, AGCOM said: “YouTube has been held responsible for not adopting any initiative for the removal of illegal content massively disseminated on its own platform by a third party (Spike), with whom it has entered into a specific contract of partnership.

In October 2020, Google was handed a €100,000 fine by AGCOM for displaying a paid-for search ad by now-defunct betting website sublime-casino.com on Google’s results page.

Italy’s Dignity Decree, which was converted into law in 2018, prohibits all forms of gambling advertising, except for adverts placed by state-run lotteries.

In July 2018, Google modified its policy page to adopt the ban by banning adverts from licensed operators. This briefly propelled unlicensed firms up its search ranks.

Google had no immediate comment.