Google (GOOGL.O) was fined 15 million roubles ($260,000) by a Moscow court on Thursday for persistently failing to comply with a Russian rule mandating internet companies to localise customer data.
In recent years, Russia has levied a number of fines to Western technology companies for a variety of violations, in what opponents believe is an attempt by Moscow to assert greater control over the internet.
Google has declined to comment on the matter.
Russia has blocked access to Twitter’s (TWTR.N) and Meta Platforms Inc’s (META.O) biggest social networks, Facebook and Instagram, although Google and its YouTube video hosting service remain accessible for the time being. Moscow takes issue with YouTube’s treatment of Russian media, which the company has restricted. The US corporation, according to Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the State Duma committee on information policy, is not currently in danger of facing the same fate. “Blocking is an extreme step, and YouTube and Google have not passed this line of rationality,” Gorelkin told reporters at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. “However, they are participants in the information war against Russia.”
The fine was given by Moscow’s Tagansky District Court for what it described as Google’s persistent refusal to store personal data of Russian users in databases on Russian soil. After Russia sent troops into Ukraine in late February, Google relocated some of its staff.
