Running a fair giveaway with exported comments

YouTube's rules come first

YouTube's contest policies make you solely responsible for your contest. You need written Official Rules that follow the law where you run it, link to YouTube's Community Guidelines, state that YouTube is not a sponsor, release YouTube from liability, and explain how you'll use entrants' data. You can't charge people to enter, run the contest through ads, or manipulate views, likes, dislikes or subscribers, for example by making them a condition of entry.

Build the entry list

Exporting comments to a CSV file gives you the whole list in one place, where you can clean it before drawing. Do this after the giveaway closes, so late comments don't sneak in.

• Keep only comments posted before the closing time in your rules.
• Keep one entry per person: remove repeats from the same commenter.
• Remove obvious spam and accounts your rules exclude, such as your team.
• Save the cleaned list before drawing, so the draw can be checked.

A draw people can trust

Pick the winner at random from the cleaned list, with a tool that shows the list and the result, and ideally record the draw on screen. Announce the winner in the way your rules described, and have a backup draw ready in case the winner doesn't reply in time.

Fairness is also about what you don't do: no hand-picking, no redrawing because you don't like the result, and no secret extra entries.

Commenters' data

A commenter's name next to their words counts as personal data under the EU's GDPR. Use the export only to run the giveaway, keep it no longer than needed, and don't publish the full list. Contact only the winner, and only in the way your rules said you would.