Russia fines large US tech companies
In the past two decades, the Internet has expanded rapidly around the world. According to a survey by Statista Around 4.66 billion people went online in January 2021, shopping, catching up on the latest news or exchanging ideas on social media. In the meantime, laws and regulations have also arrived in the digital world, which is evident from the ongoing global proceedings against internet and technology groups.
Several such proceedings are under way in Russia recently. One example is a judgment against Google that was passed in a Moscow court. Accordingly, the Californian company has to pay around 86.23 million euros in fine because illegal content was incorrectly or incompletely deleted.
The law enforcement officers have already opposed the company in the past, and threats have also been made to throttle the search engine, as up to 26,000 illegal entries on drugs, violence and extremism could be searched for and accessed. Google announced that it will take a closer look at the verdict and, if necessary, file an appeal.
Other companies from Silicon Valley are also affected by the current procedure in Russia. Meta (formerly Facebook) has to pay just under 24 million euros for similar offenses, while it was 36,000 euros on Twitter. The reasons given by the court are controversial in many places.
Critics accuse the Russian government of using the law enforcement officers to remove undesirable content from the Internet. One example is the deletion of the app and other content of the oppositionist Alexei Navalny, who has been fighting against the rule of the Kremlin for years. Here Apple and Google obeyed and implemented the regulation.
It even goes so far that known sites are completely blocked. For example, the online medium Dailymotion and the social network LinkedIn can no longer be reached from Russia. In doing so, the country is trying to continue to exercise control over what its own citizens see, a method that we already know from countries like China.
Via BBC
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