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Moscow Hits Google, Telegram with Fines
(MENAFN) A Moscow court handed down fresh penalties against two of the world's most prominent tech platforms on Wednesday, finding both Telegram and US giant Google guilty of breaching Russian law and imposing new financial sanctions against each.
The Tagansky city court levied a 7 million ruble ($91,300) fine against Telegram, citing the messaging platform's refusal to take down advertisements linked to the remote sale of alcohol and LGBT-related content.
In a separate hearing, Google was hit with a fine exceeding 22 million rubles ($287,000) for distributing VPN services and enabling Russian users to circumvent the country's internet restrictions through Google Play.
Wednesday's penalty, however, pales against the crushing financial liability already hanging over the American tech titan. On February 19, Russia's Supreme Court upheld a staggering ruling ordering Google to pay 91.5 quintillion rubles — approximately $1.2 quintillion — a figure experts calculated to be roughly one million times larger than the entire global gross domestic product.
The origins of the extraordinary penalty trace back to 2020, when Russian media outlets sued Google over the blocking of their YouTube accounts. Russian courts ruled against Google, but the company refused to comply — triggering an escalating daily penalty that began at 100,000 rubles and doubled every week.
The theoretical fine had spiraled to an almost incomprehensible 1.81 duodecillion rubles — a number carrying 39 zeros — before courts capped the liability at 91.5 quintillion rubles, fixing the ceiling at the date Google's Russian subsidiary filed for bankruptcy in October 2023.
Google had effectively wound down its Russian footprint following the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict, suspending the majority of its in-country operations before the bankruptcy filing formally closed the chapter on its presence in the market.
The Tagansky city court levied a 7 million ruble ($91,300) fine against Telegram, citing the messaging platform's refusal to take down advertisements linked to the remote sale of alcohol and LGBT-related content.
In a separate hearing, Google was hit with a fine exceeding 22 million rubles ($287,000) for distributing VPN services and enabling Russian users to circumvent the country's internet restrictions through Google Play.
Wednesday's penalty, however, pales against the crushing financial liability already hanging over the American tech titan. On February 19, Russia's Supreme Court upheld a staggering ruling ordering Google to pay 91.5 quintillion rubles — approximately $1.2 quintillion — a figure experts calculated to be roughly one million times larger than the entire global gross domestic product.
The origins of the extraordinary penalty trace back to 2020, when Russian media outlets sued Google over the blocking of their YouTube accounts. Russian courts ruled against Google, but the company refused to comply — triggering an escalating daily penalty that began at 100,000 rubles and doubled every week.
The theoretical fine had spiraled to an almost incomprehensible 1.81 duodecillion rubles — a number carrying 39 zeros — before courts capped the liability at 91.5 quintillion rubles, fixing the ceiling at the date Google's Russian subsidiary filed for bankruptcy in October 2023.
Google had effectively wound down its Russian footprint following the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict, suspending the majority of its in-country operations before the bankruptcy filing formally closed the chapter on its presence in the market.
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