On November 26 Roskomnadzor, the Russian telecom and Internet regulator, announced administrative charges against Google for failing to comply with a law that requires online search engines to purge any hyperlinks to materials that are banned in Russia. Google has also refused to connect to the federal information system where these websites are listed.
For violating Russia’s Internet censorship rules, Google faces a fine as high as 700,000 rubles (about $10,430).
Roskomnadzor will not take its case to court, but reach a decision internally. The agency has the authority to issue fines without court orders.
Roskomnadzor first announced its intention to fine Google for noncompliance with this law in late October. The same legislation also prohibits Internet anonymizers and technology used to circumvent online censorship.
Last year, journalists at VC.ru noticed that Google and Yandex had started removing links to such websites from their search results, before Russia’s censorship law took effect.
In a separate matter, in June 2017, Roskomnadzor blocked access to Google for several hours to enforce a tax ruling made in 2016.
Amont the restrictive Internet laws adopted over the past few years in Russia are the obligation for messaging services to share encryption keys with security services (“Big Brother law“) and a personal data regulation that requires to store the data in servers that are physically located on Russian soil.
In spite of some high-profile cases (LinkedIn, Telegram), these laws have not been fully implemented so far. The authorities have even showed, for certain aspects, an unexpectedly mild approach.
But Russia now intends to tighten screws, introducing stiffer fines in case of non compliance, according to “sources familiar with the matter” cited by Reuters.
“The plans for harsher fines are contained in a consultation document prepared by the administration of President Vladimir Putin and sent to industry players for feedback,” the news agency reported, potentially hitting such global giants as Facebook and Google.
Should they breach the rules, these companies could face fines “equal to 1% of their annual revenue in Russia,” according to Reuters’ sources.
