The company known as Google continues to find itself under scrutiny from a growing number of international regulators. The issues cover taxes, competition, and privacy, but the result is that more and more investigators feel emboldened to take on the U.S. tech giant.
Here’s a list of penalties that Alphabet’s Google is facing or has had to pay:
Indonesia: The most recent, it’s also one of the biggest. Government officials said this week they intend to ask the company for five years of back taxes, which could be as much as $400 million.
Russia: The country’s antitrust officials handed down a $6.8 million fine back in August, saying that Google had gained an unfair competitive advantage with its Android operating system.
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France: The French data protection authority fined Google about $111,000 for failing to appropriately comply with a European privacy ruling known as the Right To Be Forgotten.
France: The government is reportedly seeking $1.76 billion in back taxes from Google. No official ruling has been made, but Google’s Paris offices were raided this spring as part of the high-profile investigation.
Russia: In 2015, a Moscow city court ordered Google to pay about $900,000 for illegally reading the emails of a resident.
Netherlands: The government threatened to fine Google $18 million over privacy breaches in 2014.
Of course, for a company with annual revenue of $75 billion, all of this amounts to pocket lint in financial terms. But more importantly, the range of investigations adds to the perception held by many outside the U.S. that tech firms don’t believe the rules apply to them.
And in the case of Googlephabet, the company still faces an EU investigation into whether it abused the market position of Android.
More that we’re missing? Drop me a note and we’ll add them to the list!
Update at 3:30 p.m. Pacific: We have removed an entry to a European Union penalty that did not take place.
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