A Moscow court on Thursday fined Google for failing to store the data of Russia-based users in that country.
A judge fined Google 3 million rubles ($ 40,000), the first time the company has faced such a sanction in Russia.
However, LinkedIn, an employment networking platform, has been completely blocked in Russia since 2016 for the same reason.
Russia recently fined Google and other major IT providers, including Facebook and TikTok, 10 million rubles for allegedly refusing to remove illegal content.
Previously, Twitter’s services had been slowed down for several weeks in Russia, after the social media platform failed to remove banned content, including calls to join protests in support of the head of the opposition imprisoned Alexei Navalny.
Critics called the sanction an attempt to restrict the right to free speech on social media.
Thousands of websites are blocked in Russia, including those run by opponents of the government. (NAN)
