According to the country’s anti-monopoly watchdog, a Russian court fines Google 4 billion roubles ($47 million) for failing to pay an earlier judgment over an alleged abuse of its dominating position in the market for video hosting.
In Moscow’s increasingly aggressive assault against international technology businesses, this ruling is the latest multi-million dollar penalties.
In February of 2022, Google was assessed a penalty of 2 billion roubles. According to reports from the TASS news agency, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) at the time stated that Google’s YouTube had a “non-transparent, biased, and unpredictable” approach to “suspending and blocking users’ accounts and content.”
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Google did, in the end, file an appeal over that ruling. On Tuesday, the American corporation that was contacted via email for comment did not immediately react to the request.
The FAS stated that the prior fine it had levied on Google had been quadrupled due to the fact that it had not been paid.
The Federal Accounting Service came to the conclusion that an additional payment to the budget of the Russian Federation of more than 4 billion roubles was required from the corporation.
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YouTube, which has barred Russian state-funded media globally, is under strong pressure from Russian state bodies and politicians, but Moscow has stopped short of shutting it, a step taken against the likes of Twitter and Meta’s (META.O) Facebook and Instagram. YouTube has restricted Russian state-funded media globally.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, Google stopped selling web advertising in Russia. However, it has retained several free services available to Russian users. After the authorities seized its bank account, the Russian subsidiary of the company officially filed for bankruptcy, which made it difficult to pay its employees and merchants.
According to TASS‘s findings, Google has sixty days to pay the fee.
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