European Union: Advocate General delivered an opinion in the case addressing whether Google can be held liable under Italian law for hosting gambling-related advertising content on YouTube

On 27 November 2025, the Advocate General delivered an opinion in the case addressing whether Google can be held liable under Italian law for hosting gambling-related advertising content on YouTube (Case C-421/24). The Advocate General concluded that hosting such content falls within the scope of the e-Commerce Directive, noting that the exclusion for gambling activities under Article 1(5)(d) applies only to the provision of gambling services themselves, not to platforms that store this content. Regarding the YouTube Partnership Programme, the opinion observed that revenue-sharing arrangements and platform features offered to partners do not automatically establish knowledge or control over content. However, if Google’s reviewers acquired actual knowledge of specific illegal content through their examinations of partnered channels, the liability exemption under Article 14(1) would not apply. Determining whether such knowledge existed is a matter for the referring court. The case originates from July 2022, when Communications Regulatory Authority (AGCOM) imposed a EUR 750’000 fine on Google. The fine concerned 630 videos promoting gambling websites, uploaded to five channels operated by the content creator Spike, who had a commercial partnership agreement with Google under the YouTube Partnership Programme. The fine was issued under Article 9 of Decree-Law No. 87/2018, which prohibits gambling advertising in Italy. Google challenged the fine before the Regional Administrative Court for Lazio, which annulled it on the grounds that Google qualified for the liability exemption available to hosting providers under Article 14(1) of Directive 2000/31/EC (the e-Commerce Directive). AGCOM appealed to the Council of State, arguing that the Directive does not cover gambling activities under Article 1(5)(d) and that Google’s partnership agreements with content creators should prevent it from benefiting from the hosting exemption. The Council of State subsequently referred two preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the EU. The first asks whether the Directive’s liability regime for hosting providers applies to online gambling advertising. The second, contingent on an affirmative answer to the first, asks whether the liability exemption applies to a hosting provider that has commercial partnership agreements with content creators.