YouTube and Google Working Group Already Producing Tangible Results: Hakob Ashakyan

The working group dealing with regulations regarding YouTube and Google is already producing tangible results. This was stated by the Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technologies of Armenia, Hakob Ashakyan, on his Facebook page, summarizing the outcomes of a meeting with Sara Clatterbuck, the Director of Engineering at Google, held in Geneva.

“Today in Geneva, during the meeting with Sara Clatterbuck, we discussed the following issues raised by the working group.

I inform you that the working group focused on regulations related to YouTube and Google is yielding tangible results.

Today in Geneva, during the meeting with Sara Clatterbuck, we discussed the following issues raised by the working group.

• Activating the Armenian trends section, which will help understand what is currently popular in Armenia, thus strengthening the positions of local producers,
• Activating monetization for video bloggers and media outlets. Currently, many are forced to present themselves as users from other countries to be able to connect monetization. However, even in this situation, Armenian-language content receives minimal financial opportunities. This means that Armenian-language content is not encouraged.
• The global problem with Google is that Armenian-language advertising is not accessible for advertisers.

To solve the issue of Armenian-language advertising at the Google AdSense level, the unavailability has numerous negative consequences; for instance, it does not allow Armenian media to gain greater financial independence through Google's excellent toolkit.

Overall, solving these three issues, according to the calculations of the working group, will be a significant boost for the development of Armenian and Armenian-language video production. In addition, this will promote freedom of speech and opinion in Armenia. It will also greatly contribute to preserving the knowledge of the Armenian language among Armenians scattered around the world.

We expect Google to provide us with a list of issues that need to be addressed so that the population, media, and businesses in Armenia can comprehensively benefit from Google and YouTube services.

This means we need to clearly understand what steps are necessary from the Government of Armenia, the banking system, and the tech community to resolve the issue.

In addition to these issues, there are also other problems related to Google. For instance, Google Maps relies on old Soviet borders, and several settlements in southern and northern Armenia are viewed as enclaves of Azerbaijan. This complicates navigation in Armenia, as routes are mapped out with significant errors. For example, the route from Yerevan to Goris does not work properly on Google Maps because it tries to avoid what it considers Azerbaijani territory. These issues pose serious problems for tourists.

We agreed to engage specialists from both sides to work towards resolving these matters.

Special thanks to Samvel Martirosyan, Vahan Hovsepyan, and the other members of the working group for their support.

I invited Ms. Clatterbuck to Armenia to participate in WCIT 2019 and requested that she also convey the official invitation to her management.

We also discussed another issue that will be a surprise for all citizens of Armenia; thus, I will refrain from disclosing it at this time,” the minister's post reads.