MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. A magistrate court in Moscow fined the Google search engine 4 mln rubles ($51,408) for providing links to the websites with content banned in Russia including the promotion of drugs, radical Islam, nationalism, as well as the kasparov.ru website, banned in the country. This is according to a court ruling in the case on the administrative offense, a copy of which was obtained by TASS.
"Google LLC, located at 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View, California 94043, United States of America, being the operator of the Google search engine, in violation of the Information, Information Technology and Data Protection Act, did not stop providing links to search queries about resources included in the Unified Register of pages of websites with information banned in the Russian Federation, namely: www.kasparov.ru, kavkazcenter.com, graniru.org," the document says.
Moreover, Google has not stopped issuing links to websites with child pornography, information about drug trafficking, nationalist organizations in Russia and Ukraine, and the activities of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir group outlawed in Russia, the document says.
In total, the resolution lists 21 Internet resources whose content is banned in Russia. This violation was revealed due to measures taken by the Russian media watchdog to control the implementation of the national legislation in the area of the Internet.
On January 17, a justice of the magistrate court of the judicial district No 422 of the Tagansky district has found Google guilty on Part 2.1 of Article 13.40 of the Russian Code of Administrative Violations (repeated violation of responsibilities of the search system operator to stop providing data requested by users about information resources with restricted access on Russian territory) and pronounced a fine of 4 mln rubles ($51,408).
Since early 2021, Google has been repeatedly fined for its failure to remove information prohibited in Russia. Sixteen protocols were drawn up in respect of Google for such violations, the Russian telecom and mass media watchdog told TASS earlier.
In December 2021, the justice of the peace court in Moscow imposed the turnover-based fine of 7.2 bln rubles ($92.5 mln) on Google, which was a precedent in Russian court practice.