YouTube may lose EU liability shield over partnered gambling channels
The closer YouTube gets to the business of illegal gambling videos, the less protection it may have from lawsuits, the European Union’s top court ruled Thursday.
Google is challenging a 750,000-euro (about $860,000) fine imposed by Italy’s communications regulator, AGCOM, under the country’s 2018 ban on virtually all direct and indirect gambling advertising. The penalty followed claims that YouTube creators used five channels to promote gambling websites and encouraged viewers of any age to submit videos of their winnings in exchange for cash rewards. Along with the fine, the regulator ordered Google to remove 630 videos and similar content.
Google, meanwhile, argues that while gambling itself falls outside the EU’s e-commerce rules, platforms hosting gambling advertisements do not. It warned that requiring YouTube to inspect uploaded videos would amount to censorship and undermine both users’ freedom of expression and its ability to provide cross-border online services.
The Court of Justice of the European Union agreed on that point, holding that excluding gambling from the directive does not automatically strip a neutral hosting service of its legal protections because simply storing user-uploaded videos is treated as a neutral service under European law. “The activity of online hosting is not intrinsically linked to that gambling,” the judges said.
That protection can disappear, however, if a platform moves beyond acting as a passive host. To join YouTube’s Partner Program, creators must meet subscriber and viewing thresholds, while Google reviews a channel’s theme, its newest and most-watched videos and related metadata before allowing it to share advertising revenue.
“Where the activity of the operator of an online platform results in it knowing the essential content uploaded by a user to that platform, it cannot rely on the exemption from liability,” the court said.
https://www.courthousenews.com/youtube-may-lose-eu-liability-shield-over-partnered-gambling-channels/