Russian court imposed an additional fine of 4 billion rubles on Google Alphabet

CTOnews.com, June 27 (Xinhua) Alphabet-owned Google has been fined an additional 4 billion rubles (CTOnews.com Note: about 342 million yuan) for failing to pay an earlier fine because YouTube is accused of abusing its dominant position in the video hosting market, Russia's antitrust regulator said on Tuesday. According to the TASS news agency, Google must pay the fine within 60 days.

Tu Yuan Pexels learned that Google was fined 2 billion roubles (currently about 171 million yuan) in February 2022, when the Federal Antitrust Administration (FAS) said Google's YouTube had taken an "opaque, biased and unpredictable" approach to "suspending and blocking user accounts and content".

Google finally appealed the decision. The US company did not immediately respond to an email request for comment on Tuesday.

FAS said the previous fine imposed on Google had doubled because it failed to pay. FAS concluded: "the company must also pay more than 4 billion roubles to the budget of the Russian Federation."

Google stopped selling online advertising in Russia in March 2022 but retained some free services, while its Russian subsidiary formally filed for bankruptcy after authorities shut down its bank accounts and were unable to pay employees and suppliers.