A Moscow court on Friday said that it has imposed a penalty of 7.2 billion roubles ($98 million) on Alphabet-owned Google for what the company was repeated by the government to delete the content which it deems illegal.
This is the first of its kind that any authority has fined a big tech company for not complying with their rules. Since the adoption of the sovereign internet law in 2019, the local authorities have further increased their control over the internet network in Russia.
Moscow singlehandedly has increased pressure on foreign companies throughout this year. Although the critics have been criticising this as an attempt by the Russian authorities to put pressure and tighten its control over the internet infrastructure in the country.
When asked Google said, It would study the court’s ruling before deciding on further steps. To date, Google Inc. has paid more than 32 million roubles in fines over the content violations throughout the year on several issues.
Russia has ordered the big tech companies to delete posts promoting drug abuse, information on weapons and explosives on their social media platforms, as well as by the groups that the Russian authorities consider as extremist groups.
