A Russian court fined Google parent Alphabet 4 billion rubles ($47 million) for failing to pay an earlier fine for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the video hosting platform, the country’s Russian antitrust regulator said today.

The decision is the latest major multimillion-dollar fine in Moscow’s stepped-up campaign against foreign technology companies.

Google was fined 2 billion rubles in February 2022.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) had said that Google’s YouTube service has an “opaque, biased and unpredictable” approach to “suspending and blocking user accounts and content”, TASS news agency reported.

Google actually appealed this decision. The US company did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The FAS announced that the previous fine imposed on Google was doubled during its non-payment period.

“The company will have to additionally pay more than 4 billion rubles to the budget of the Russian Federation,” the FAS statement concluded.

YouTube, which has blocked Russian state media globally, is under intense pressure from Russian state agencies and politicians, but Moscow has avoided blocking it, a measure taken against Meta’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Google stopped selling ads online in Russia in March 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine but has maintained free access to some of its services. Its Russian subsidiary officially filed for bankruptcy after authorities seized its bank account, making it impossible to pay staff and suppliers.

Google must pay the fine within 30 days.