Google to close Russian engineering offices amid internet crackdown

Google is planning to shut its Russian engineering offices in Moscow, tech publication The Information reported today. Citing anonymous sources inside Google, the publication intimated that the decision of the search engine giant to shut its offices is the result of Russia’s restrictive data laws.

A Google spokesman said in a statement: “We are deeply committed to our Russian users and customers and we have a dedicated team in Russia working to support them.”

Google’s announcement has stoked fears that the Russian government’s tightening grip on information distribution, characterised in part by laws limiting information distribution, is swiftly making Russia’s tech sector inhospitable to foreign companies.

This summer, the State Duma passed a law requiring all internet companies, including foreign ones, to store data from or about Russian citizens inside Russia, rather than on servers abroad. The law was introduced just weeks after a bill requiring bloggers in Russia to register as mass media was signed into law, a move which is widely considered as an attempt to weaken opposition voices online and control information exchange in the country.

On the heels of Vladimir Putin’s April comment that the internet is a “CIA project”, an increasing mistrust of internet and tech companies with a foreign base — in particular those developed in the US — has left the future of a number of social media and internet organisations in Russia insecure.