Google in just one month has been hit with two massive fines from Russia, amounting $350 million and $33 million each. The first fine came in about two weeks ago and accused Google for not removing content which according to media regulator Roszkomnador contained “misleading news” about Russia Ukraine conflict. The second and newer one came in from Russia’s competition watchdog, which blamed Google’s video streaming platform ‘YouTube’ for breaking competition laws.
While implemented with reasons, these fines appear to be false accusations from the Russian authorities inorder to increase pressure on Google. This is because Google is one of the few US tech giants that’s still actively working in Russia after the Ukraine Russia conflict.
Google despite being operational in Russia has stopped selling ads in the country while also removing all state applications from the Google Play Store.
Apart from these two fines, a Russian court has also fined Google with 15 million rubles, accusing them of breaking a Russian Law which requires companies working in the tech industry to localize user data. To add on top of all this, Russian authorities have also sealed Google’s bank account which led Google’s Russian business to file for bankruptcy.
The tech giant is not alone, following the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine operations of many US based organization have been blocked by the Russian Government or have voluntarily finished their businesses in Russia as a protest on the Ukraine invasion.
Blocked companies also include major social applications including Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, tech companies like Apple which stopped selling all of its products in Russia and even E-commerce giant Amazon which stopped taking in new AWS customers from Russia. A Google spokesperson regarding these fines said that “We will study the text of the official decision to define our next steps”.
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