Page:Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019.pdf/42

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42
NO. 18 OF 2019


reward for the operation of an online location if the person receives from another—

(a) any consideration for the sale of advertising space on the online location; or
(b) any consideration for access to any part of the online location.

(3) It is a defence to a charge under subsection (1) for the accused to prove that the accused did not know and had no reason to believe that the online location was a declared online location.

(4) Where a court convicts any person of an offence under subsection (1), the court must, in addition to imposing on that person the punishment in that subsection, order the person to pay as a penalty, within the time specified by the court, a sum equal to the amount of any financial or other material benefit received or the amount that in the court's opinion is the value of that financial or other material benefit, and any such penalty is recoverable as a fine.

(5) Subsection (4) does not apply if the court determines that the value of the financial or other material benefit cannot be assessed.

(6) Where—

(a) a person charged with 2 or more offences under subsection (1) is convicted one or more of those offences; and
(b) the other outstanding offences are taken into consideration by the court under section 148 of the Criminal Procedure Code for the purpose of passing sentence,

the court may increase the penalty mentioned in subsection (4) by an amount not exceeding the total amount or value of the financial or other material benefit received for the offences so taken into consideration.

(7) In this section, a person is not taken to operate an online location if the person does so merely as part of providing an internet intermediary service or incidentally to such provision.