Advertisement Regulations in Russia

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Online behavioral advertising:

In Russia, the advertising Law does not regulate online behavioral advertising. However, in the Article 23.2 of the Russian constitution, the Article guarantees privacy of correspondence and other communications. In addition to that, the federal law provides for protection of certain information where a person can be identified. As the use of such data is unauthorized, it can result in administrative liability, in other word a fine. The only state body entitled to impose an administrative fine on an infringer and initiate those kinds of administrative proceedings is ‘The federal Supervision Agency for the Information Technologies and Communications, which are responsible for the general enforcement of the Personal Data Law.

Even if there is a lack of specific ruling, the FAS is now paying much more attention to the general activities of Internet companies. In fact, In 2013 the FAS sent Google an inquiry stating that the company didn’t act in conformity with the privacy law of Russia, and a the same time using information from Google mail services to target the users with online behavioral advertising. To what Google stated that the fact that the company was considered as a US corporation and the fact that Google has no servers in Russia, allows the company to not abide to the Russian Personal Data Law. In this case, no court action has followed, but the case showed growing attention of the enforcement body towards the general activities of Internet companies with of course respect to online behavioral advertising. After that, the FAS changed the situation by amending the Personal Data Law so that now even companies from other countries will also have the obligation to abide by its rules.

Sales promotions:

In the Advertising Law, sales promotions are not specifically regulated. For example, the Arbitrazh Court of Moscow said that the advertising on the building face of the TSUM store and website of 30% and 50% discount, created the impression that the offer applied to all the goods offered in the store for sale, whereas the discount only applied for items from the previous collection. So the court, based on the circumstances, concluded that the seller distributed misleading advertisement, which contained inaccurate information on the price and then misguided the customers.[3]

In 2003, a Federal Law “On Sweepstakes” gave a detailed regulation of promotional sweepstakes, which are subject to notification to the tax authority responsible for overseeing the activity. This type of notification should have information on each sweepstake territory, the promoted goods/services, and the entity in charge of organizing the sweepstake. Sweepstake organizers also should submit an overview of the terms and conditions of the sweepstake, procedure for the price draw, way of informing potential participants… But there are other requirements as for example promotional sweepstakes can’t be conducted with automatic equipment such as lottery machines. The aim of this measure is to eliminate illegal gambling activity, which is very restricted in Russia.

Advertisers should be careful when advertising promotional events. For example, in the Viktoria case, Viktoria a large Russian retail chain was fined by the FAS for not being able to provide consumers with all the proper informations on all the details of the promo event. Viktoria claimed that all the necessary informations were indicated in their advertising (phone numbers, website…). In this case, the courts found no infringement, and the courts stated that the advertising Law actually allows indications only of sources of necessary information when a promo event advertising is put in place.

Ambush Marketing:

When it comes to ambush marketing, advertisers should be very careful with the general prohibition imposed by the Advertising Law, where the use of a third party’s means of individualization or the use of international organizations official symbols is not allowed. In addition to that, advertisers should also observe the prohibition of unfair competition imposed by both the advertising law and the competition law.

The best example would be the Olympic Games, as there is an express prohibition on use of the symbol of the Olympic Games without even receiving a proper license from the relevant Olympic body. It is set forth in the federal law “On organizing and Conducting the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in the city of Sochi” (the Olympic Law). This federal law (Article 6.3), aimed at protecting the interest of the sponsors of the Olympic Games, under which advertisement that contains false information on the advertiser’s relationship to the Games on its sponsorship status is considered as unfair advertising. In most of the cases, the Russian courts decided against companies that uses the Olympic symbols in their advertisement.

The Teknograd case from 2011 is a rare example of alternative court practice. In it’s ruling, the FAS stated that the advertising images of the goods sold by the company were put in a way that it created similarities with the official symbol of the Winter Olympic games of 2010. In this case, the court actually disagreed with the FAS apparently because the FAS failed to prove that the claimed similarity brought consumers to the conclusion that this company had affiliation and some sort of relations with those Olympic Games organizers.[4]

Restricted products:

Two of the most restricted products in Russia remain Alcoholic beverages and tobacco. The advertising Law allows advertising of the alcoholic beverages on the back pages and the front of the media. Further, Any advertisement of tobacco and beer must be fallowed by a warning, which has to take at least 10% of the advertising space in order to alert the consumers to the dangers of alcohol and tobacco abuse. Since 2013, the advertising of alcohol has been prohibited, which means that any alcohol advertisement on TV, Internet, Radio, print media, and public places is now considered against the law. Tobacco has also fallen under similar restriction since 2013. In fact, Russia is now considered as part of the global leader in fighting smoking.

In anticipation of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, certain amendments were introduced in 2014 in order to allow the advertisement of beer in printed mass media, during broadcasting of sports events and on TV channels specialized in sports information, within sports venues and 100m from them when official sports events are taking place. Because of this massive event, these amendments were put into force on 22 July 2014 and will be