[HN Gopher] Russian court fines Alphabet's Google 7.2 bln roubles
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Russian court fines Alphabet's Google 7.2 bln roubles
Author : 8bitsrule
Score : 74 points
Date : 2021-12-24 16:04 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| $100M could buy you dozens of well connected lawyers to drag this
| out for decades.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| I wonder why china and Russia just fine and get war money from
| whoever they want.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Russia is looking at increasing disconnection from the West.
| Might as well collect some fines on their way into isolation.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I think people are being naive if they don't see this as the
| future across the board: The Internet simply can't exist
| outside or above the law of the land. It's a very powerful
| communication tool, but it still physically exists within
| countries with varying laws and customs.
|
| I doubt the Internet will truly fracture into individual
| networks completely, but you should expect things to be
| selective on what is shared between borders, just like with
| everything else.
|
| China and Russia have strong political reasons to be ahead of
| the curve on this, but I would expect many other countries to
| begin to follow suit for reasons of national security:
| Cyberattacks absolutely can cause loss of life, and it's a
| matter of time until it happens on a large scale.
| quocanh wrote:
| This is overstated in my opinion. The internet will remain
| relatively free in true democratic states unless there's a
| population of people out there who are just begging for their
| government to lie to them and manipulate them.
| mycall wrote:
| I wonder how Russia and China prevents satellite internet.
| Threats of destroying the satellites?
| datameta wrote:
| That's MAD, but for global satellite usage due to Kessler
| Syndrome.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| But all major powers have now demonstrated they retain
| the option if needbe.
| datameta wrote:
| Right, exactly - mutually assured destruction of orbital
| usage because of everyone retaining the option.
| yaris wrote:
| According to Russian law all traffic via satellite should
| first go through "landing" stations in Russia and then via
| usual cables to IXs. And if a satellite provider does not
| comply - their terminals cannot legally be bought
| in/imported to Russia.
| xxpor wrote:
| More practically speaking, the issue is for sat internet,
| you need to both receive (relatively easy to hide, at
| least from broad based surveillance), but also transmit
| (much much easier to pick up). So I doubt starlink will
| be a panacea.
| cute_boi wrote:
| can't we ban it easily just by not allowing the radio
| devices? (I don't know how trivial is to make satellites
| internet connector like dishes etc.)
| ansgri wrote:
| Powerful transmitters are most certainly heavily
| regulated.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Russia just blew up a satellite.
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/russia-
| ju...
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Russia has ordered companies to delete posts promoting drug
| abuse and dangerous pastimes, information about homemade weapons
| and explosives, as well as ones by groups it designates as
| extremist or terrorist."
|
| Personally I am against of this kind of regulation but frankly I
| do not see anything outrageous. Assuming they're not marking
| legitimate discussions as extremists.
| yaris wrote:
| Basically this is exactly ehat they do. FBK (Anti-Corruption
| Fund) is declared "extremist organization" in Russia for it
| discloses corruption among Russian gov-t and top
| administration. And Google is guilty of not removing
| information from/about FBK.
| FpUser wrote:
| Well that sucks of course.
| janeroe wrote:
| > Assuming they're not marking legitimate discussions as
| extremists.
|
| Which they do. They're fining Github (threatening to block it)
| for not removing a repo with "candidates without ties to the
| ruling party" during election. The justification is the repo
| was created by FBK Anti-Corruption Foundation which was
| declared extremist for "undermining the basis of the
| constitutional order". Nobody would admit it here but something
| equally ugly is going on with J6 stuff.
| joedoejr wrote:
| The groups that designates as extremist or terrorist include
| FBK and Projekt.media who exposing corruption and war crimes of
| Russia rulers and their oligarch walkets.
| i67vw3 wrote:
| Around 100 Million USD
| azinman2 wrote:
| Seems like a small price to pay to not comply with censorship.
| geodel wrote:
| Specially when someone else is paying.
| trasz wrote:
| Or with law in general.
| janeroe wrote:
| > Seems like a small price to pay to not comply with
| censorship.
|
| Doesn't work that way. They'd have to pay again and again and
| again. Till they comply or leave the Russian market.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| I note this is happening right before Russia is (imo) about to
| invade Ukraine again.
|
| Governments can get-away with outrageous things when there's a
| war going on to distract everyone, and what better way to drum-up
| support for a war _anyway_ by making it easier to control what
| people can see online (or least: by making it ever increasingly
| more difficult to see independent news sources - you don 't need
| to block content outright e.g. by banning Google like China did,
| just change the defaults: e.g. pass a law requiring all computers
| and phones sold in the country to have their home-pages set to
| Pravda.ru or something.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I note this is happening right before Russia is (imo) about
| to invade Ukraine again.
|
| "Again" implies that Russia had at some point stopped invading
| Ukraine, which is very much not the case.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Russia has been trying to invade Ukraine since 1991.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| Although people love to gang up complaining about Google, I would
| not necessarily celebrate this. I am sure these decissions are
| oftentimes more politically based and not sure if a country
| should really decide what should or should not be availabe on the
| internet.
| nlitened wrote:
| I don't think it's about what is available on the internet --
| rather what is available on country's territory.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| I agree that a country should not decide it. But a company
| shouldn't either. Look at the shit show YouTube is. Or Twitter.
| john_moscow wrote:
| I think, it's a purely economical thing. Most large businesses in
| Russia are owned by people affiliated in one or other way with
| the current leadership (Vladimir Putin and friends). This has
| been gradually achieved by "raiding" independent Russian
| companies - making their business model unviable by selectively
| applying laws or threatening to jail original owners, and then
| buying them for a fraction of the cost.
|
| Now that they have deployed and tested the infrastructure to
| block arbitrary Internet traffic (that started a few years ago
| under a guise of combating pedophilia), they will use it to
| transfer the market share from companies not owned by the "group
| of friends" to their Russian equivalents.
|
| In other words, they want Google to exit the Russian market,
| because its market share will then go to Yandex and Mail.ru,
| owned by the "right" people. And if Google doesn't do it
| voluntarily, they will just block it like they blocked LinkedIn
| [0].
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38014501
| riclad wrote:
| It's clear that Russia is moving in the same direction of China,
| ban and erase all data or video, audio uploads that criticise the
| government or even make space for a wide range of diverse voices
| from protestors or just small minority groups whose opinions and
| right to free speech might not be in line with official
| government policy Since big tech company's have millions of users
| they are a prime target for government censors and they have the
| money to pay large fines
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| Why would they allow their media to be dominated by companies
| controlled by country that's primary goal since at least 75
| years is to see Russia destroyed? Looks like a move in the
| right direction from their pov.
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(page generated 2021-12-24 23:01 UTC)