Moscow, Oct 18 (Agency) The Tagansky District Court in Moscow fined Amazon a total of 4 million rubles ($64,800) on Tuesday over the IT giant’s refusal to take down restricted content on illegal drugs and methods of suicide. “Amazon.com, Inc. has been found guilty of committing an administrative offense under part 2 of Article 13.41 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses. The court imposes a punishment in the form of an administrative fine in the amount of 1 million rubles,” judge Timur Vakhrameyev said at the hearing. The protocol against Amazon was drawn up for its refusal to delete data depicting methods of suicide on a social network it owns.
This was Amazon’s first fine of kind in Russia. Another fine of 3 million rubles was issued to Amazon at a hearing shortly later over its refusal to take down content on ways to purchase or distribute illegal drugs. Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor has sent Amazon warnings to delete illegal materials 19 times in the suicide methods case and 21 times in the illegal drugs case, according to case files. The maximum amount of fine for both offenses combined under Russian law is 12 million rubles. The court will review cases concerning Twitch and Wikimedia’s refusal to delete restricted content later in the day.