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Russia fined Google 21.1 billion rubles ($374 million) on Monday for repeatedly failing to “take away prohibited data” — content material associated to the nation’s invasion and subsequent struggle in Ukraine. The nation’s telecommunication watchdog Roskomnadzor cited a court docket order and stated Google (notably YouTube) didn’t take down content material that discredited “the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”
The watchdog’s press launch additionally accused Google of not deleting “supplies selling extremism and terrorism” throughout its platforms. It famous that the advantageous was calculated primarily based on the corporate’s annual turnover in Russia, nevertheless it didn’t specify any proportion.
Final month, the Russian telecommunication watchdog warned the corporate that it may face a advantageous of 5-10% of its turnover for repeated violation of native legal guidelines on restricted content material. In line with information from the Interfax information company’s Spark database of Russian firms, Google’s income for 2021 was 134.3 billion rubles ($2.3 billion). So the brand new advantageous could be round 15% of the corporate’s annual turnover.
Final December, Russia issued Google its first revenue-based advantageous of seven.2 billion rubles ($98 million) within the nation, for failing to take away unlawful content material as per the nation’s legal guidelines.
After Russia started attacking Ukraine in February, Google restricted its providers with steps together with stopping billing on the Play Retailer and YouTube for Russian customers, limiting Google Information, pausing its advert gross sales within the nation, and blocking YouTube channels of state-backed media. Different main tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Cisco, and Dell additionally moved to scale back or exit enterprise operations in Russia.
Notably, Google’s Russia subsidiary filed for chapter final month after native regulators froze its financial institution accounts in Could. The corporate stated it moved lots of its workers out of Moscow after the combating started.
Whereas the nation didn’t ban YouTube or Google’s providers like Fb and Instagram, it issued repeated warnings to the search large for a number of causes together with “anti-Russia” adverts and blocking state-sponsored media’s YouTube channel.
Russia has been waging a significant propaganda struggle to bolster its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s actions have been met with robust rebuke each outdoors of the nation and inside it, so in an effort to suppress the information in regards to the assault that’s vital of its actions, Russia has been controlling the stream of data as a lot as it could possibly. It handed a regulation in March that threatened these within the media with as much as 15 years of jail time for reporting what it deemed “pretend information” about its invasion of Ukraine. In response, a number of information shops and social media firms like TikTok shut down their operations or restricted their providers within the nation.
Google’s trials and tribulations in Russia come at a time when it’s dealing with different issues in Europe, albeit for very completely different causes. In Denmark, authorities have banned Chromebooks and Google Workspace in faculties over information safety violations. In France, Italy, and Austria, regulators are presently investigating Google Analytics’s information safety practices.
We have now reached out to Google for a remark.
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