Tech companies are not alien to government-imposed restrictions. Facebook, Google, Youtube, and many other tech companies have been banned in different countries at various points in time due to their non-compliance with that country’s restrictions. Recently, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) decided to leave Russia due to increasing hostilities within the region, stating government imposed restrictions on its services was as the core reason for its departure.
But Russia is not the only country that imposes restrictions on companies like Google. Previously, Spain, China, and the European Union have put sanctions on Google, either restricting its access within their borders, or passing laws to reject the mechanism of the company in its entirety.
In fact, only recently, the European Union passed a resolution under which it was suggested that Google be split into two parts, one dealing solely with the search engine division, and the other dealing with all other Google products and services. The move was heavily criticized by policymakers in the US, who claimed it violated the right to freedom Google enjoyed according to law as a private company. However, Google has not left its business in the European Union amidst all such hostility.
Also, recently, Google decided to pull out its Google News service from Spain, explicitly stating a new Spanish law as reason for its decision. The new law requires Google News to pay all local news services that it displays a specified sum of money in return for the display of their news on its service. As it is more feasible for Google to pull out its News service from Spain, the Nexus-developing company decided to pull it out.
In Russia, Google faced restrictions of a persistent nature. According to multiple reports, Russia has been heavily monitoring all internet activity within its borders, removing all it deems against state policy. According to a report released by Google, Russia is among the countries that have made the most requests for removal of information from Google compared to other countries, having made over 253 official requests for removal of links in only six consecutive months of 2013.
Google has refused to comment on this issue; however news of its withdrawal from Russia has been confirmed. As to why Google has left Russia entirely, analysts argue the company, based on the principle of promoting freedom to disseminate information, faces great difficulty in operating in regulated environments, especially ones as regulated as Russia.
This is exactly why Google refused to ever base its operations in China, a yet another heavily regulated environment for tech companies to operate in. YouTube, a service of Google, faces a consistent ban in China. Also, many other Google services won’t be allowed to operate in China due to many Chinese laws.
Whether Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) ever plans on returning its operations to Russia is a question that will be answered in time and according to the environment Russia provides the company. However, as long as Russia maintains a stringent position on Google and its services, it is highly unlikely the Android developers will be returning to Russia anytime soon. In the meantime, Google researchers are being relocated to other regions to continue working for Google.
