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Russian court fines Google $50.8 mln over ‘fake’ information on Ukraine war
MOSCOW, Dec 20 (Reuters) - A Russian court fined Alphabet's Google GOOGL.O on Wednesday 4.6 billion roubles ($50.84 million) for failing to delete so-called "fake" information about the conflict in Ukraine, the TASS news agency reported.
Russia has been at loggerheads with foreign technology companies over content, censorship, data and local representation in a simmering dispute that intensified after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Russia calls the conflict in Ukraine a “special military operation”.
Alphabet’s YouTube has been a particular target of the Russian state’s ire but, unlike Twitter and Meta Platforms’ META.O Facebook and Instagram, it has not been blocked. The fine was calculated as a share of Google’s annual turnover in Russia. The company was handed similar turnover-based penalties of 7.2 billion roubles in late 2021 and 21.1 billion roubles in August 2022.
($1 = 90.4825 roubles)
(Reporting by Reuters in Moscow, Alexander Marrow; additional reporting by Filipp Lebedev; editing by Andrew Heavens and Jason Neely)
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I can see the Google board shaking with laughter.
I thought Google would have withdrawn all services from all Russian IP addresses immediately after the start of the special military intervention?
Looked it up. While users in russia can access Google Search (and related Google services) it has suspended all advertising, YouTube revenue, etc since early days