CJEU ruling tests Google hosting shield over ad revenue
A ruling from Europe's top court could strip platforms of their liability immunity when they share advertising revenue with creators, threatening the digital advertising market.
The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled on whether Google can claim legal immunity for YouTube videos promoting online gambling. At the centre of the case, referred by Italy’s Council of State, is a fundamental question for the platform economy: can a company that curates, monetises and shares proceeds with a creator still call itself a passive host?
Google invoked the EU e-commerce directive’s hosting exemption after AGCOM fined Google Ireland €750,000 in July 2022 for breaching Italy’s 2018 Dignity Decree, which bans gambling advertising across all media. However, the court examined Google's commercial partnership with the creator, noting that the company reviewed the channel’s theme, metadata, and videos before signing a revenue-share deal.
This active-versus-passive distinction has existed in EU law for two decades, but it was drafted for an earlier era of simple file storage. If the hosting shield dissolves for platforms in revenue-share relationships, the legal exemption weakens precisely where modern content companies generate their income.
The economic impact would land on the online gambling sector first and the digital advertising market immediately after. The broad regulatory interest underscores these high stakes, with the governments of Italy, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and Portugal all intervening alongside the European Commission to argue the case.
This ruling also arrives two weeks after the same court upheld a €4.1bn Android fine against Google. It further compounds a difficult period that includes a German court ruling Google liable for its AI Overviews and the company offering concessions to avoid a Digital Markets Act penalty over news-search rankings.
Across these disputes, European authorities are consistently challenging the notion that a company arranging, ranking, and monetising third-party content is merely a neutral conduit. The CJEU’s legal answers now return to Italy’s Council of State, which will decide their precise impact on the original Italian fine.
