Online search giant Google will be shutting down its engineering office in Russia as stricter laws start to be enforced in the country. According to reports, the Russian government is seeking to further protect personal data shared online. Russia has requested Google to remove links from the search engine in 2013.
"We are deeply committed to our Russian users and customers and we have a dedicated team in Russia working to support them," Google said.
More than a hundred employees, mostly engineers, will be losing their jobs at their office in Moscow upon its closure. But Google is not leaving its employees behind and will be transferring most of them to offices at nearby countries such as Ukraine.
There were no further explanations, however, as to why the company had limited the closing to its Russian engineering office. Google Russia's Marketing and support staff will continue to operate.
More Internet companies and websites are expected to transfer their operations elsewhere once the new law comes into effect in 2015. Adobe has announced the closing of their office in Russia in September next year.
Reports also indicated that the Russian government is making it more difficult for websites to share and collect information in the country. Critics say that the new laws would make it easier for the Russian government to monitor all online data through its local ISPs, and more difficult for social networking sites based overseas.
The Russian Parliament passed a new law in July for websites to store personal information of its citizens to be done locally. Sharing of personal data online abroad will no longer be allowed. The new law was reportedly passed after a new law on blogs was enforced. The law states that blogs with over 3,000 hits a day must be registered with the communications commission.
Russian President Vladimir Putin does not like the Internet and would rather get information from other sources.
