Russians criticise Google for gambling ads

Google was in a spot of Russian bother this week when the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) announced that  the company’s Russian presence was asked to remove gambling ads or face administrative penalties.

Apparently the intervention took place after a complaint from the public had been received.

Quickly responding to the warning, Google explained that banned adverts can on occasion slip through the Google AdWords filters when manipulated by unscrupulous operators using remote (robot) technology.

“Unfortunately, in some cases questionable advertisers attempt to find holes in our filters by various means and sometimes they succeed. We are constantly improving our system and working on the reliability of our filters,” the giant search engine said in response to the FAS caution.

The gambling business in Russia has been banned everywhere but for four designated areas in the vast country, and has been for the past five years (see previous reports).

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