Watchdog says to discuss with Google respect of Russian laws Wed

MOSCOW, Nov 13 (PRIME) -- The Russian communications service will hold a meeting with representatives of Google on Wednesday to discuss fulfilment by the U.S. company of local laws, including the one on blocking of banned websites, the authority’s Director Alexander Zharov told reporters on Tuesday.

“A meeting with a Google manager, who is coming to discuss this issue, among others, will take place at the communications service’s place. In its letter, Google thinks that they respect Russian laws. We think they don’t because the company has failed to get connected to the interface with the register of banned information…We’ll speak about it tomorrow,” Zharov said.

“If we come to terms on the matter, we’ll pass on the information to court, but it does not cancel the court procedure.”

The authority said in October that Google had failed to get connected to the system of monitoring of locally-blocked websites, and would be punished with a fine of 500,000–700,000 rubles. A protocol is drafted in the presence of the company’s representatives, who can make remarks. The document is then submitted to court.

Local authorities obtained the right from September 26 to fine operators of search systems for non-fulfilment of duties to stop giving data on all Internet resources with the information restricted in the country.

Zharov also said that the watchdog has other questions to the company, including on localization of personal data of Russians, deletion of certain resources with forbidden information, and the like.

(67.5238 rubles – U.S. $1)

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