A court in Moscow has found Google guilty of disclosing the personal data of Russian soldiers killed during the war in Ukraine, according to the state news agency Tass on Monday. The court ruled that YouTube content included prohibited information revealing the identities and personal details of deceased Russian soldiers, violating Russian laws that ban the dissemination of such data.
As a result, the court imposed a fine of 3.8 million rubles (approximately $46,240) on Google. This is not the first time Google has faced penalties in Russia; the same court previously fined the company for publishing videos instructing Russian troops on how to surrender and for restricting Russian state media channels on YouTube.
Local media reported that Google’s accumulated debt in Russia from administrative fines has reached a staggering 2 undecillion rubles ($2.4 decillion), a figure that astonishingly exceeds the entire global GDP, which stood at around $106 trillion in 2023.
