In the run-up to Russia’s parliamentary elections on Sept. 17-18-19, the Kremlin’s battle against online dissent brings new developments almost daily. Tech giants are not spared, with Google at the forefront earlier this week.
Court marshals visited the company’s Moscow office to enforce an injunctive measure to remove the opposition-minded ‘Smart Voting’ site from search results.
This online voting recommendation system was designed by the team of jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny. It aims to drive voters to candidates who best challenge the ruling party United Russia.
Formally, the court ruling of Sept. 3 that prohibits the search engines to provide access to Navalny’s ‘Smart Voting’ is related to a copyright matter. A Russian wool company, Woolintertrade, sued the search engines after registering ‘Smart Voting’ as its own trademark.
Last week the authorities constrained Yandex to remove the same phrase. The Russian search giant said it plans to appeal against that ruling.
The court marshals who came to the Google office Monday found only one employee there. The employee called a lawyer, who said over the phone to the court marshals that the office belongs to the Russian company OOO Gugl, while the court’s ruling applies the US company Google LLC, which is another legal entity.
Update Sept. 16: Russian telecom operators started blocking access to Google Docs on September 15 in late evening, according to GlobalCheck, a service that monitors Internet censorship in Russia and neighboring former Soviet countries. These measures could be related to the publication of the ‘Smart Voting’ lists on Google Docs resources.
