Google fined again by Russia for undeleted illegal content

Russia has fined Alphabet, Google’s parent company, for the second time in a short time. This time it concerns an amount of 36,000 euros. The company has been fined a second time for failing to remove content that Russia deems illegal.

Alphabet has not yet responded to the new fine, Reuters reported. At the beginning of November, Alphabet was fined approximately 24,000 euros for the same reason. Alphabet says it paid 380,000 euros in fines in Russia in October. The imposition of small fines is one of the means that Russia is using to take stricter action against tech companies.

The Russian communications watchdog previously threatened to impose a fine amounting to between 5 and 20 percent of Alphabet’s turnover in the country. Between 5 and 20 percent of Alphabet’s Russian turnover is roughly equivalent to between 52 and 206 million euros. The large fine would be partly for the illegal content that Google did not remove, and partly for the unpaid fines from the search giant. Russia’s illegal content includes child pornography, the promotion of drug abuse and ‘dangerous activities’ and information about how to make weapons and explosives.

Alphabet says it has removed 96.2 percent of all content that Russia has labeled illegal from YouTube, which would be equivalent to 489,000 videos.