Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service Says Google Violated Antitrust Laws

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) ruled on Thursday that internet giant Google had violated the country's antitrust law with its non-transparent blocking regulations on YouTube.

"The service determined that the rules for creating, suspending, blocking of accounts and circulation of users' content on YouTube are opaque, biased and unpredictable," the FAS said in a statement, adding that  "such behaviour undermines users' interests as well as curtails competition on adjacent markets."

The sum of the fine levied against the company will be determined during the course of an administrative investigation.

The case against Google, which is suspected of abusing its dominant position in the video hosting market, was initiated in April last year.

In December, a turnover fine was imposed on a tech company in Russia: the court ruled to fine Google 7.2 billion rubles ($98Mln) for repeated failure to remove prohibited information. A few hours later, Meta was also slapped with a turnover fine of almost 2 billion rubles for similar violations.