Maxim Ali has commented for the Kommersant on Federal Antimonopoly Service`s directive to remove alcohol advertising from popular Russian blog

Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation in Leningrad region has ordered the owner of Nastya Ivleeva YouTube channel to stop the violation of the Federal Law “On Advertising”. The release of the show, which raised questions from the antimonopoly authority, received almost 2.3 million views. It shows the preparation of an alcoholic cocktail, the foreshortening allows for unambiguous identification of the product, and a branded glass is used. Under Russian law, alcohol advertising on the Internet is prohibited. Nastya Ivleeva is one of the most popular bloggers in Russia; her YouTube channel has 4.1 million subscribers. Forbes placed the blogger with an income of $1.5 million on the 17th place in its ranking «40 most successful stars of Russia up to 40 years 2020″.

Maxim Ali, Head of IP/IT practice at Maxima Legal has drawn attention to the fact that the amount of penalty is not comparable to the fee for banned advertising. The expert explained the Kommersant newspaper that «Ivleeva may be fined up to 20 thousand rubles in each of the cases for violation of the law on advertising and for failure to comply with the Federal Antimonopoly Service’s order to eliminate the violation. Such relatively small amounts can be explained by the fact that Ms Ivleeva has the status of an individual entrepreneur. Legal entities are fined up to half a million rubles for the same violations. Therefore, legislation does not quite take into account the Internet reality, where most bloggers who distribute advertising work as individual entrepreneurs, but receive fees, which may amount to hundreds of thousands of rubles rather than tens. It is not surprising that it is economically profitable for them to take the risk of violating the law on advertising in such conditions”.

To read the full article (in Russian), please see the Kommersant website >>>