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Russia’s watchdog draws up protocol against Google for insufficient content filtering

The company may face a fine of 500,000-700,000 rubles

MOSCOW, July 5. /TASS/. Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor has compiled a protocol on administrative violation against Google for insufficient measures to filter banned content from search results. The amount of the fine can reach 500,000-700,000 rubles ($7,839-10,975), the watchdog said on Friday.

According to the watchdog, Google does selective filtering of search results but still more than a third of links from a single registry of banned information are showing up in search. "Administrative liability for non-fulfillment of these requirements for legal entities is a fine of 500,000-700,000 rubles ($7,839-10,975). We have drawn up a protocol on administrative offense against Google," the report said.

Earlier, head of the agency, Alexander Zharov told reporters that Roskomnadzor was in constant contact with the corporation.

Under current law, search engine operators are required to exclude links to Internet pages with prohibited information from search results. To do this, they must connect to the Federal State Information System, which contains a list of such pages. Previously, according to the agency, the content filtering volume was about 80%; now, according to Zharov, it does not exceed 70%.

This is the second administrative case against Google. In December 2018, the company was fined with 500,000 rubles ($7,839) for refusing to filter prohibited content. In April 2019, the corporation began filtering content banned in Russia, but not in full.