A court in Moscow on Thursday fined Google for failing to store the data of users who are based in Russia in that country.

A judge imposed a fine of 3 million roubles (40,000 dollars) on Google, the first time the company has faced a penalty of this kind in Russia.

However, LinkedIn, an employment networking platform, has been completely blocked in Russia since 2016 for the same reason.

Russia recently fined Google and other major Information Technology providers including Facebook and TikTok some 10 million roubles for allegedly refusing to delete illegal content.

Earlier, Twitter’s services were slowed down for several weeks in Russia, after the social media platform failed to remove banned content including calls to join demonstrations in support of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Critics called the penalty an attempt to restrict the right to freedom of speech on social networks.

Thousands of websites are blocked in Russia, including those run by government opponents.

(dpa/NAN)