Since the beginning of the year, the Committee for Competition Development has studied 24 thousand advertising messages, deputy head of the department Asadulla Kayumov said at an AIMC briefing.

Over eight months, more than 8 thousand violations in the advertising sector were discovered. The bulk of the studies concerned outdoor advertising objects – more than 19 thousand during the reporting period.

In this area, committee staff identified 5,354 violations when placing advertisements (for example, interference with the movement of vehicles and pedestrians). Protocols were also drawn up for 1,262 violations of the law “On advertising” related to public standards of behavior.

The Committee reported about 751 cases of promotion of prohibited advertising products (tobacco and alcohol products) in catering establishments. Another 553 cases involve advertising of bookmakers, and 809 involve violations in advertising of dietary supplements.

The department also studied over 4.5 thousand advertising messages posted on social networks. Most of the checks affected advertising on Telegram (4,108 cases), while Instagram and Facebook together accounted for just over 10% of their number.

The topic of advertising dietary supplements, balms, ointments and other alternative medicine preparations was separately touched upon. In more than 150 cases, comments were requested from the Ministry of Health, and protocols were drawn up in 103.

In addition, the Committee, together with AIMC, submitted applications to block 92 websites for promoting bookmaker services and sweepstakes. Of these, 27 were satisfied.

11 applications were sent to the internal affairs bodies about the promotion of betting and bookmakers by pop stars, athletes and bloggers.