Fraudulent online practices

The experience of China

In September 2025, China's antitrust agency (SAMR) published enforcement practice of investigating false advertising in e-commerce. For example, Desheng Hospital in Shanghai hired 169 bloggers to advertise medical services in short videos (shorts), who talked about the quality of services they allegedly used themselves. In another case, a company promoted virtual reality projects through bloggers who posted videos of themselves using VR applications. However, it turned out that in none of the cases did the bloggers actually use the companies' services. Those involved in the investigations were fined between 100,000 and 200,000 yuan (between $14,000 and $28,000) for fraud and the use of deepfakes.

It is worth noting that China and other countries are tightening regulations on blogger advertising, requiring, for example, the provision of reliable information about the blogger's experience using the product and the requirement to indicate that the products discussed by bloggers are advertisements. The most stringent regulations have recently been introduced by the UAE, where bloggers must obtain a license to distribute advertising.

The US experience

In September 2025, a lawsuit was filed against Uber in the United States for discriminating against passengers with¹ disabilities. The U.S. Department of Justice accused Uber of refusing to serve passengers with service dogs and folding wheelchairs. Uber has a “credit” system, a form of compensation whereby, for example, if a trip is canceled, a driver behaves inappropriately, or money is debited in error, Uber credits the user's account with a certain amount in the form of credits. But there is a limit on credits. Due to the large number of refusals by drivers, passengers with disabilities reached the limit, and Uber stopped providing them with compensation or reimbursing them for canceled orders.

In addition, an illegal fee was charged for cleaning up after service dogs, drivers often insulted passengers, and did not provide opportunities for convenient travel, for example, they did not allow a person with limited mobility to sit in the front (for example, one passenger was unable to sit in the back because of her prosthetic leg). At the same time, Uber did not provide specialized training for drivers who transport passengers with disabilities.

Despite the fact that passengers often faced discrimination from drivers, Uber also bears direct responsibility, as it is a licensed transportation service provider (on par with taxi companies) and is required to comply with legislation protecting persons with disabilities from discrimination—ensuring that service animals are allowed on board, not charging additional fees related to a passenger's disability, etc.

Russia’s experience

Russia is also seeing a trend toward tighter advertising regulations, including for bloggers. For example, from September 1, 2025, advertising on banned social networks such as² Instagram will be prohibited. This could lead to the advertising market going “underground,” reducing the transparency and revenue of the online advertising market and decreasing tax revenues from advertising.

When it comes to the social responsibility of platforms, Russia does not regulate the issue of ensuring the rights of people with disabilities when using platforms (there are only requirements for carriers, i.e., taxi companies, and drivers). However, taxi platforms such as Yandex Taxi have introduced special features for users with physical disabilities and have policies for transporting such people. Most likely, the regulation of the social responsibility of platforms will develop through self-regulation of platforms and driver training.

From the monitoring issue No. 9 (21), September 2025. Download the full issue (PDF) · issue page at the Gaidar Institute