How the FAS decision on inspections will affect the American company
Google has new problems in Russia: the Federal Antimonopoly Service intends to check other search engines, including foreign ones, in the Yandex case. And the Moscow Arbitration Court ordered the American corporation to restore the YouTube account of the Tsargrad TV channel, which was blocked due to the fact that the owner of the media, Konstantin Malofeev, is under US sanctions. The proceedings lasted almost a year, now Google also has to return a certain amount to the channel for monetizing content. What do these decisions mean for the American IT giant? And how will they influence the corporation's plans to continue working in Russia? Grigory Kolganov found out.
Last summer, the Tsargrad page on YouTube was blocked because Malofeev was included in the sanctions list, in response, Google received a lawsuit in Russia. To do this, it was necessary to amend the domestic legislation a little, but it was not in vain – the court for the first time ordered an American corporation to restore the account of the Russian media.
Malofeyev's lawyer, Art De Lex managing partner Dmitry Magonya calls the decision a serious precedent: “This case is interesting because it is about everything and immediately sets vectors for many cases that will appear in the future or are being considered now. This is the case for digital IT giants: can they have discretion over content blocking or not? Can they close access to information resources without giving any reason? “
Google found itself between a rock and a hard place, because to execute the decision of the Russian court in theory means to fall under US sanctions. But if you ignore the verdict on “Constantinople”, you will have to pay a penalty of 100 thousand rubles. in a day. Probably, this is the path that the IT giant will follow, says Denis Durashkin, lawyer for BGP Litigation: “Google, even on pain of penalties, is unlikely to comply with the decision of the Russian court. In practice, we know a case when companies belonging to an IT giant were fined huge amounts.
For them, this is a normal cost in their business model. I do not think that Google will be scared even if the forfeit reaches billions of rubles.
They can simply agree with the option to pay these fines, but not comply with the decision. “
The misadventures of Google in Russia did not end there. The Federal Antimonopoly Service has launched a large-scale investigation of the so-called “wizards” of “Yandex” – special tools in search results, with the help of which, according to the FAS, the domestic IT corporation promotes its own services to the detriment of third parties. As stated by the anti-monopoly authorities, they are going to check other search engines, including international ones. For abuse of a dominant position, by the way, faces a turnover fine.
The observer of Kommersant FM, managing partner of Fishki.net Mikhail Gurevich sees in all this not just a coincidence – the authorities may be preparing a trap for important Internet players: “The state is once again going through a period of enthusiasm for Internet regulation. Many associate this with the upcoming federal elections. Large corporations today are “put on the hook” if the need arises to say that this is not a fight against freedom of speech, but the implementation of court decisions that were taken earlier on purely economic issues. “
The Russian authorities switched from threats to action some time ago: Twitter has slowed down since the beginning of March. He is accused of not deleting prohibited information, including calls for mass actions. If the social network does not improve, they promised to block it altogether. And many analysts believe that the service does not hold on tightly to the Russian market. But Google is unlikely to behave in the same way, says Mikhail Gurevich: “The corporation knows how to negotiate and bend. As we know from the example of China, she even knows how to edit search results.
Google is ready to work with regimes that require special treatment.
Since they occupy a significant share in the Russian market in the flow of monetization of Internet content, it would be very foolish to lose such a tidbit. “
It is not yet clear how the Russian user will react to the censored version of Google services. But an even more important question: will this example become contagious for other IT giants, who, sooner or later, may also find themselves between a rock and a hard place?
Ilya Sizov
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