Russia hits Google with a $375M fine for allowing ‘prohibited’ Ukraine news

[areyentiraidhi]

Image Credits: Artur Widak/NurPhoto / Getty Images

Russia fined Google 21.1 billion rubles ($374 million) on Monday for repeatedly failing to “remove prohibited information” — content related to the country’s invasion and subsequent war in Ukraine. The country’s telecommunication watchdog Roskomnadzor cited a court order and said Google (particularly YouTube) didn’t take down content that discredited “the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”

The watchdog’s press release also accused Google of not deleting “materials promoting extremism and terrorism” across its platforms. It noted that the fine was calculated based on the company’s annual turnover in Russia, but it didn’t specify any percentage.

Last month, the Russian telecommunication watchdog warned the company that it could face a fine of 5%-10% of its turnover for repeated violation of local laws on restricted content. According to data from the Interfax news agency’s Spark database of Russian companies, Google’s revenue for 2021 was 134.3 billion rubles ($2.3 billion). So the new fine would be around 15% of the company’s annual turnover.

 

Last December, Russia issued Google its first revenue-based fine of 7.2 billion rubles ($98 million) in the country for failing to remove illegal content as per the country’s laws.

After Russia began attacking Ukraine in February, Google limited its services with steps including stopping billing on the Play Store and YouTube for Russian users, restricting Google News, pausing its ad sales in the country and blocking YouTube channels of state-backed media. Other major tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Cisco and Dell also moved to reduce or exit business operations in Russia.

Notably, Google’s Russia subsidiary filed for bankruptcy last month after local regulators froze its bank accounts in May. The company said it moved many of its employees out of Moscow after the fighting began.

While the country didn’t ban YouTube or Google’s services like Facebook and Instagram, it issued repeated warnings to the search giant for several reasons including “anti-Russia” ads and blocking state-sponsored media’s YouTube channel.