Google pays fine of 3.5 mln rubles for insufficiently filtering out of search results content banned in Russia

MOSCOW. Aug 26 (Interfax) - Google has paid a fine imposed on it by court of 3.5 million rubles for insufficiently filtering its search results to remove content banned in Russia, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) said.

"The company was held liable for failure to filter search results under Article 13.40 of the Russian Administrative Offenses Code, and a fine of 3.5 million rubles has been paid," Roskomnadzor said.

On May 27, Moscow's Tagansky District Magistrates' Court found Google guilty of an administrative offense for insufficiently filtering search results in the territory of Russia to remove content banned in the Russian Federation.

The total amount of fines imposed on Google amounts to 32.5 million rubles this year, Roskomnadzor said.

In total, 15 administrative reports have been drawn up against Google LLC since the beginning of the year and have been submitted to court. The court has considered 13 of them. Along with the aforementioned fine for refusing to filter search results, 11 reports were considered for failure to remove banned content for a total of 26 million rubles, as well as one for refusing to localize the personal data of Russians in the territory of the Russian Federation (Article 13.11 of the Russian Administrative Offenses Code), for which the company was fined 3 million rubles.

Google regularly pays the fines imposed on it in Russia, after the decisions on them take effect. Thus, on March 10, Roskomnadzor said that Google had paid a fine of 3 million rubles, which was imposed by the court on December 17 for refusing to comply with the requirements for totally filtering content banned in Russia out of search results.

Thus, taking into account the previously imposed fines, Google has paid 8.7 million rubles for incompletely filtering search results.

In 2019, an administrative case was initiated against Google for failure to remove banned content from search results (the amount of the fine was 700,000 rubles, and the fine was paid). On May 25, 2020, the company was fined 1.5 million rubles for a repeat violation and paid it, too.

Russian courts began to impose large fines on Google, as well as other companies, including domestic ones, this year for failure to remove online content banned in Russia under Article 13.41 of the Administrative Offenses Code.