Russia's media regulator fines Google half a million rubles for ignoring local search-engine censorship law

As promised, Russia’s federal media censor has fined Google for failing to comply with a law that requires online search engines to purge any hyperlinks to materials that are banned in Russia. Google has also refused to connect to the federal information system where these websites are listed. For violating Russia’s Internet censorship rules, Google has been fined 500,000 rubles ($7,520) — less than the maximum fine of 700,000 rubles (about $10,530).

Roskomnadzor first announced its intention to fine Google for noncompliance with this law in late October. The same legislation also prohibits Internet anonymizers and technology used to circumvent online censorship. Last year, journalists at VC.ru noticed that Google and Yandex had started removing links to such websites from their search results, before Russia's censorship law took effect.