The Tagansky District Court ruled that Google repeatedly neglected to remove the banned content and ordered the company to pay an administrative fine of about 7.2 billion rubles (about $98.4 million).When I read the headline Russian court fines Google nearly $100M, I literally laughed out loud.
Google said it would study the court documents and then decide on its next steps.
Russian authorities have steadily ramped up pressure on social media platforms, accusing them of failing to purge content related to drug abuse, weapons and explosives. Earlier this year, the authorities blamed tech companies for not deleting announcements about unsanctioned protests in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
Google's 2020 revenue was 181.69 billion dollars.
I don't know if the corporation keeps the sort of small change they'd need to pay a $100M fine in their "paying off tinpot autocrats" petty cash slush fund or not. They'll probably need to see if Page or Brin can break a B-note.
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