New Rules of the Game: How to Distinguish Advertising from Information Online Starting July 25, 2025

On July 25, 2025, significant amendments to advertising legislation come into force, fundamentally changing the approach to defining what constitutes advertising in the digital environment. These changes aim to establish clearer and fairer criteria for distinguishing between advertising and non-advertising materials, which is particularly relevant for rapidly developing online platforms.

The Essence of the Changes:

Until now, distinguishing advertising from information online has often raised questions and disputes. The new rules introduce specific criteria. Information online will be unambiguously recognized as advertising if all three of the following criteria are met simultaneously:

1. Attention-Grabbing and Promotion: The information must be aimed at attracting attention to a product, work, or service, creating or maintaining interest in them, and promoting them on the market. This is the key sign of advertising communication.
2. Absence of Reference/Informational or Analytical Nature: The material must not have the character of an objective reference, instruction, news item, expert analysis, or review that does not pursue the direct goal of promoting a specific product/service.
3. Connection to Business Activities: The information must constitute an announcement placed for commercial purposes, related to entrepreneurial or professional activity. Personal announcements (e.g., selling personal belongings) are not covered by these rules.

Who Needs to Be Especially Careful?

The new criteria do not apply to the entire internet indiscriminately, but primarily to information placed on the largest digital platforms with mass Russian traffic:

• Marketplaces (Wildberries, Ozon, Yandex Market, and similar).
• Service Aggregator Websites (Avito, Youla, Profi.ru, Sravni.ru, and similar).
• Search Engines (Google, Yandex, and similar).
• Social Networks (VK, Odnoklassniki, Telegram, and similar, including video hosting sites).

Important Clarification: The rules apply only to platforms whose daily traffic from Russian users exceeds 500,000 people. This means that small websites and social networks with a smaller audience do not yet fall under these strict criteria.

Why is this Important? Consequences and Goals of the Changes:

• Clarity and Certainty: The main goal is to eliminate ambiguous interpretations (“gray areas”) and establish transparent rules for all market participants, including advertisers, advertising platforms and regulatory authorities. The new standards make it possible to clearly determine whether specific content (post, product card, banner, etc.) falls under the advertising legislation, including the relevant requirements: mandatory labeling (“advertisement”), restrictions on the promotion of certain categories of goods and other regulatory requirements.
• Financial Consequences (Crucial New Development!): Clearly defining online advertising allows for more accurate calculation of the amount of mandatory contributions from the income generated by its dissemination. This refers to the advertising levy (advertising tax) paid by advertising distributors (the platforms) to the Russian federal budget. Previously, due to blurred boundaries, there were difficulties in determining the base for this levy. Now, if information is recognized as advertising under the three specified criteria and is placed on a large platform, the income from it will be clearly accounted for when calculating the levy.
• Combating Hidden Advertising: The criterion regarding the non-informational nature is designed to help fight native advertising and hidden promotion disguised as “reviews” or “advice.”

What Should Businesses and Platforms Do?

• Content Audit: Major marketplaces, aggregators, social networks, and search engines need to audit the information they host (especially user-generated content from sellers, companies) for compliance with the new criteria.
• Label Advertising: Information that clearly meets all three criteria must be properly labeled as advertising (the labeling must contain: the note “#advertisement” or “advertisement” in social networks, a clear designation of advertising blocks, an indication of the advertiser, an individual token with the advertiser’s data, which each advertising material must have, as well as the submission of reports to ERID – the Unified Register of Internet Advertising).
• Adapt Accounting Systems: Platforms need to adapt their analytics and billing systems to accurately account for income specifically from information that is now legally classified as advertising, for the correct calculation of the advertising levy.
• Update Contracts and Rules: Advertisers and platforms should revise placement agreements and internal policies, taking the new criteria into account.

Conclusion:

The changes coming into force on July 25, 2025, represent a significant step in regulating digital advertising in Russia. Introducing clear criteria for distinguishing advertising from information will increase market transparency, ensure fairer taxation (through accurate calculation of the advertising levy), and help consumers better understand when they are seeing an advertising offer. The largest online platforms and businesses using them for promotion need to promptly adapt to the new requirements to minimize risks and ensure compliance with the law.