A Russian court has fined Google $78 million for failing to comply with earlier penalties related to illegal content.
For a while now, Russia has been telling foreign tech companies to take down content they think is illegal. They usually just slapped on small fines, but this time, they really cranked it up.
The fine is a big jump from the usual $39,000 they’ve been charging. It’s about 8 billion roubles, which is no small change. Google hasn’t said anything yet about this fine.
The court mentioned that Google failed to comply with a previous penalty, but they didn’t go into details about which one. YouTube has been in hot water for hosting content that Russia doesn’t like.
Once, YouTube had around 50 million daily users in Russia, but that number has dropped to about 12 million. Some folks think Russia is messing with YouTube’s download speeds to keep people from watching certain content.
Russia says the issues are all on Google’s end, but Google insists it’s not their equipment causing the problems.
This isn’t the first time Russia has hit Google with a huge fine. Back in October, they slapped Google with a ridiculous fine of $20 decillion, which is 20 followed by 33 zeros. That’s more than the entire world’s GDP!
The Kremlin said that fine was more symbolic than anything else. They even had a spokesperson say it was a number so big, it’s hard to even say.
At that time, reports said the fine was linked to YouTube blocking content from at least 17 Russian TV channels, especially after the invasion of Ukraine.
