Watchdog can slow Google traffic amid banned info non-deletion

MOSCOW, May 24 (PRIME) -- The Russian communications service can slow down the traffic for Google services because of insufficient deletion of materials with locally banned information, the authority said on Monday in a statement.

“Volumes and terms of non-deletion by Google of the materials available on the territory of Russia with child pornography, calls to suicide, drugs content, calls to illegal rallies and other extremist and destructive content are such that measures of slowing down the traffic can be applied to the company’s services,” the watchdog said.

The authority said it had sent to Google’s administration more than 26,000 warnings on the necessity of deleting illegal information.

“If upon receipt of a request of the communications service, an Internet platform does not restrict access to the banned information during 24 hours, it will be fined from 800,000 to 4 million rubles. In case of a repeated violation, the fine will be raised up to a tenth of the total amount of annual revenue of the company,” the watchdog said.

The authority also said that YouTube has not deleted about 5,000 banned videos, including 3,500 with calls to extremism.

On average, from 20 to 30% of links to the content the country forbids, including websites of terrorist and extremist organizations and websites with children’s pornography, are not deleted from search results.

(73.5803 rubles – U.S. $1)

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