MOSCOW (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc faces fines of up to 12 million roubles ($204,000) in Russia for failing to delete content Moscow deems illegal, news agencies reported on Tuesday, in what would be a first penalty of this kind for the U.S. tech giant.
Russia has fined several other foreign tech firms for the same offence, part of what critics say is a wider campaign by the Kremlin to throttle the influence and reach of Western technology companies in Russia.
TASS quoted a Moscow court as saying that two cases had been drawn up against Amazon, both pertaining to a “violation of the procedure of restricting access to information” in accordance with Russian legislation.
“(Amazon) faces a punishment in the form of a fine totalling up to 12 million roubles,” TASS quoted the court as saying.
Amazon did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
TASS did not specify the content that had allegedly fallen foul of Russian law.
Earlier on Tuesday, Moscow’s Tagansky District Court fined Amazon’s streaming service Twitch 4 million roubles for hosting a video interview with a Ukrainian political figure that Moscow said contained “fake” information.
($1 = 59.0000 roubles)
(Reporting by Alexander Marrow Editing by Mark Potter)
