Several media in Russia report the news that the The Kremlin will forcibly collect the fine that Google has repeatedly refused to pay. The sanction from 100 million dollars (7.2 billion rubles) commissioned for having published “content banned“Expired on March 19 of this year. But Google doesn’t seem willing to remove the content.
Russia will forcibly collect the fine from Google
According to reports, the Russian federal service FSSP launched on April 29 the procedure to withdraw the fine commissioned by Google properties in Russia. The verdict of the Moscow Tagansky Court sanctioned the compulsory collection of the fine from 7.2 billion rubles.
The Russian court has sanctioned Google for violating requests to delete content from its online resources. A situation repeated several times, even on YouTube. The charge is that of spreading bogus information via the internet, although Western commentators see this as one sorry for the censorship.
The sanction, however, was commissioned before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in December 2021. Before that, Russia had already fined Google for not responding to requests for Roskomnadzor, the Russian censorship body. But since last October, the body had warned Google that it would impose fines between 5 and 20% of annual revenues in Russiainstead of fixed fines (and of little consequence for a giant like Google).
This fine is therefore the heaviest ever imposed by Moscow on a foreign tech company. But it seems that Google has no intention of submitting to the will of Russia, especially after the war events and the sanctions imposed. The Mountain View company seems intent on resisting the pressure, even at the cost of having the $ 100 million fine stolen.