Google in trouble over censorship law in Russia

MOSCOW, Russia – Largest search engine, Google is in trouble over censorship legislation in Russia. This is because the global search engine was today fined 1.5 million Rubbles, that is about USD20,000 for repeated violation of its obligation to filter content banned in Russia.

Google was found guilty  by Tagansky District Court for repeated failure to perform a search engine operator’s obligations. 

RAPSI reported that in July 2019, Russia’s communications agency Roskomnadzor imposed 700,000-ruble fine about $9,500  on Google company for failure to abide by Russian legislation.

Google did not connect to Russia’s registry of prohibited websites, according to the watchdog’s statement.

In December 2018, Google was fined 500,000 rubles, about $6,800 for similar violations.

Russian legislation provides that search engine operators must exclude links to prohibited websites from the search results, hence Google is required to connect to the federal state information system with the list of prohibited websites.