The central government issued a new advisory for news websites, OTT platforms, and private satellite channels. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said in this advisory that they should not run advertisements for betting websites or apps on their platforms. Legal action will be taken if the advisory is not followed.
Earlier in June this year, the central government had also issued guidelines to control misleading advertisements targeting children. There was also talk of fixing the accountability of the film actors who advertised. Surrogate advertisements were also banned. Advertisement without proving its veracity was banned. Its purpose is to stop misleading advertisements.
As per the Information Technology (Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, the ministry has stated that advertisements on betting platforms are an illegal activity, which cannot be shown on digital media.
The advisory said that the ministry has observed that promotional content and advertisements of betting platforms are still visible on some news platforms and OTT platforms. Online offshore betting platforms have started using news websites as surrogate products to advertise.
The ministry said that many news websites are being operated by betting platform owners only. The logos of these news websites look somewhat like betting platforms. Betting platforms are promoting themselves using these news websites as a product.
Upon checking, it was found that this type of betting and news website is not registered with any legal authority. It is clear from this that the betting platform is doing illegal promotion under the guise of the news website.