Kremlin intends to fine Google
Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media or Roskomnadzor has accused Google of violating Russian law and will request a court to fine the company between 500 ($7,615 USD) and 700 thousand (10,660 USD) rubles, Radio Liberty reports.
The reason for this is that the Internet search engine did not connect to the Russian federal state information system, which contains a list of banned and blocked sites in Russia.
According to the Russian law, search engine operators are obliged to exclude such sites from the search results. Roskomnadzor claims that they provided Google with a notification about the need to connect to the system, but this was never implemented.
Russia prohibits distributing any information included in the federal list of extremist materials, which has more than 4,500 entries. In addition, based on court decisions, Roskomnadzor blocks sites that are violating the law. The agency can also block sites without a court’s decision for a number of reasons. For example, at the suggestion of the Prosecutor General’s Office, they can block sites with calls for uncoordinated rallies.