A Moscow court imposed a fine of 2 million rubles (approximately US$28,085) on Google today because the company did not delete content deemed illegal by Russia. In fact, this is only part of a wider dispute between Russia and Google. As early as the end of 2018, Russia imposed a fine of 500,000 rubles (approximately US$7,530) on Google for failing to remove specific entries from its search results as required by law.
Since then, Google has been fined several times in Russia. In the middle of last month, the Russian communications regulatory agency, the Federal Agency for Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media Supervision (Roskomnadzor), stated that so far this year, Google has not paid a fine of 32.5 million rubles (approximately US$458,100).
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To this end, Roskomnadzor also said that it is expected to issue a huge fine to Google soon, with a fine of up to 240 million U.S. dollars. Roskomnadzor stated that it will seek to impose a fine of 5% to 20% of its annual Russian revenue, up to a maximum of 240 million U.S. dollars.
The reason is that Google has repeatedly failed to delete content deemed illegal. This will be the strongest punishment Russia has imposed on foreign technology companies so far. At the end of last month, Google announced that it had paid Russia a fine of more than 32 million rubles.