Russian court fines Alphabet's Google 7.2 bln roubles | Hacker News Reader

Russian court fines Alphabet's Google 7.2 bln roubles

reuters.com

89 points8bitsrule49 comments

I note this is happening right before Russia is (imo) about to invade Ukraine again.

Governments can get-away with outrageous things when there's a war going on to distract everyone, and what better way to drum-up support for a war anyway by making it easier to control what people can see online (or least: by making it ever increasingly more difficult to see independent news sources - you don't need to block content outright e.g. by banning Google like China did, just change the defaults: e.g. pass a law requiring all computers and phones sold in the country to have their home-pages set to Pravda.ru or something.

> I note this is happening right before Russia is (imo) about to invade Ukraine again.

“Again” implies that Russia had at some point stopped invading Ukraine, which is very much not the case.

Russia has been trying to invade Ukraine since 1991.

What about Crimea? Or you think it was invaded by "patriots"?

Also, Russia may need the money. Wars are expensive.

Although people love to gang up complaining about Google, I would not necessarily celebrate this. I am sure these decissions are oftentimes more politically based and not sure if a country should really decide what should or should not be availabe on the internet.

I agree that a country should not decide it. But a company shouldn't either. Look at the shit show YouTube is. Or Twitter.

I don’t think it’s about what is available on the internet — rather what is available on country’s territory.

It's clear that Russia is moving in the same direction of China, ban and erase all data or video, audio uploads that criticise the government or even make space for a wide range of diverse voices from protestors or just small minority groups whose opinions and right to free speech might not be in line with official government policy Since big tech company's have millions of users they are a prime target for government censors and they have the money to pay large fines

Why would they allow their media to be dominated by companies controlled by country that’s primary goal since at least 75 years is to see Russia destroyed? Looks like a move in the right direction from their pov.

Most Americans have a pretty favorable view of Russian citizens and culture. It's the dictators for life and abuses of civil liberty we take issue with. We want to see a better life for all human beings that doesn't involve jackboots on necks, it's got nothing to do with wanting to "see Russia destroyed."

Personally, though, I do get irritated with straw men, fake outrage, and false dichotomy when it's trotted out to justify the actions of tyrants in pursuit of tyranny.

It's hard to imagine that anyone believes that America's primary goal for 75 years has been to see Russia destroyed.

Maybe you should try reading some non-native history books

Sorry, the primary goal is not to destroy Russia. It's just a world domination, and destroying Russia is just a top task on the list of achieving and maintaining world domination, not a primary goal. And given the later rise of China, destroying Russia may even drop to place 2 of the US task list.

I think, it's a purely economical thing. Most large businesses in Russia are owned by people affiliated in one or other way with the current leadership (Vladimir Putin and friends). This has been gradually achieved by "raiding" independent Russian companies - making their business model unviable by selectively applying laws or threatening to jail original owners, and then buying them for a fraction of the cost.

Now that they have deployed and tested the infrastructure to block arbitrary Internet traffic (that started a few years ago under a guise of combating pedophilia), they will use it to transfer the market share from companies not owned by the "group of friends" to their Russian equivalents.

In other words, they want Google to exit the Russian market, because its market share will then go to Yandex and Mail.ru, owned by the "right" people. And if Google doesn't do it voluntarily, they will just block it like they blocked LinkedIn [0].

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38014501

Russia is looking at increasing disconnection from the West. Might as well collect some fines on their way into isolation.

I think people are being naive if they don't see this as the future across the board: The Internet simply can't exist outside or above the law of the land. It's a very powerful communication tool, but it still physically exists within countries with varying laws and customs.

I doubt the Internet will truly fracture into individual networks completely, but you should expect things to be selective on what is shared between borders, just like with everything else.

China and Russia have strong political reasons to be ahead of the curve on this, but I would expect many other countries to begin to follow suit for reasons of national security: Cyberattacks absolutely can cause loss of life, and it's a matter of time until it happens on a large scale.

I wonder how Russia and China prevents satellite internet. Threats of destroying the satellites?

That's MAD, but for global satellite usage due to Kessler Syndrome.

But all major powers have now demonstrated they retain the option if needbe.

Right, exactly - mutually assured destruction of orbital usage because of everyone retaining the option.

can't we ban it easily just by not allowing the radio devices? (I don't know how trivial is to make satellites internet connector like dishes etc.)

Powerful transmitters are most certainly heavily regulated.

According to Russian law all traffic via satellite should first go through ”landing” stations in Russia and then via usual cables to IXs. And if a satellite provider does not comply - their terminals cannot legally be bought in/imported to Russia.

More practically speaking, the issue is for sat internet, you need to both receive (relatively easy to hide, at least from broad based surveillance), but also transmit (much much easier to pick up). So I doubt starlink will be a panacea.

Russia just blew up a satellite.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/russia-ju...

This is overstated in my opinion. The internet will remain relatively free in true democratic states unless there's a population of people out there who are just begging for their government to lie to them and manipulate them.

I definitely agree that within democratic states, people will generally see and enjoy a relatively open and democratic Internet, reflective of their nation's laws and values. However, I suspect you'll find much more inspection going in and out of national borders. You'll see stricter laws about hosting data in the country you're operating in, and more servers will blanket ban access from outside of their intended service area.

Consider that if my site serves a local area only, I eliminate a very large portion of potential attackers by simply dropping all traffic not originating from an IP in my country of origin. So if I don't believe there's value to leaving that open... it's honestly silly to do so.

Sure and that's one thing. But to say that Russia and China are "ahead of the curve" is sort of implying that the future of my internet is only government-approved information and that's simply not true. You need to accept that authoritarian states are unique in the type of censorship that they do. It is not inevitable for everybody nor does this type of censorship make any sense for anybody but the ruling party.

There are a lot of people like that now, everywhere including the US?

Around 100 Million USD

Seems like a small price to pay to not comply with censorship.

Or with law in general.

Specially when someone else is paying.

> Seems like a small price to pay to not comply with censorship.

Doesn't work that way. They'd have to pay again and again and again. Till they comply or leave the Russian market.

>"Russia has ordered companies to delete posts promoting drug abuse and dangerous pastimes, information about homemade weapons and explosives, as well as ones by groups it designates as extremist or terrorist."

Personally I am against of this kind of regulation but frankly I do not see anything outrageous. Assuming they're not marking legitimate discussions as extremists.

Basically this is exactly ehat they do. FBK (Anti-Corruption Fund) is declared ”extremist organization” in Russia for it discloses corruption among Russian gov-t and top administration. And Google is guilty of not removing information from/about FBK.

Well that sucks of course.

The groups that designates as extremist or terrorist include FBK and Projekt.media who exposing corruption and war crimes of Russia rulers and their oligarch walkets.

So something like Assange.

Yes, except US government does not try to order Google to delist Wikileaks. And has not tried to poison the man. AFAIK.

Hillary Clinton inquired about murdering him with a drone. I'm sure many others were thinking it or saying it. And America has had other people (including its own citizens) executed outside the judicial system.

It prefers drones. Or ruins whole nations killing a scores in a process. I wonder what the victims would tell giving a chance.

Nothing like Assange. All FBK sources are open databases and registries. The corruption in Russia is that obvious.

> Assuming they're not marking legitimate discussions as extremists.

Which they do. They're fining Github (threatening to block it) for not removing a repo with "candidates without ties to the ruling party" during election. The justification is the repo was created by FBK Anti-Corruption Foundation which was declared extremist for "undermining the basis of the constitutional order". Nobody would admit it here but something equally ugly is going on with J6 stuff.

>"They're fining Github (threatening to block it) for not removing a repo with "candidates without ties to the ruling party" during election"

Not a good example. US had Github to delist repos for political reasons as well and have no doubt what would've happened to Github had it chosen not to comply.

$100M could buy you dozens of well connected lawyers to drag this out for decades.

That did not work well for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Magnitsky

That’s not how Russia works.

I wonder why china and Russia just fine and get war money from whoever they want.

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