A court in Moscow fined United States technology giant Google 6 million rubles ($81,810) for failing to delete content deemed illegal by the Russian authorities.
The three separate fines handed out Tuesday come amid a wider spat between Moscow and Google. Russia's communications watchdog warned Monday that Moscow could eventually slow down the company's traffic in the country if it failed to delete prohibited content.
Russia has already placed a punitive slowdown on U.S. social network Twitter for not deleting banned content, part of a push by Moscow to rein in Western tech giants and beef up what it calls its internet "sovereignty."
Google was found guilty of administrative offenses, Moscow's Tagansky District court said in a statement, and was ordered to pay 2 million rubles for each offense.
Google Russia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The charges concern posts that Russia says encouraged minors to join unsanctioned protests in January, when people across Russia took to the streets to support Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny after he was detained.
Later on Tuesday, the court will also consider eight reports concerning Facebook, which could lead to a total fine of up to 32 million rubles, the Interfax news agency said.
In April, a court issued three separate fines against Twitter totaling 8.9 million rubles, over accusations it had failed to delete banned content. TikTok has also been fined for similar offenses this year.
