MOSCOW: A Moscow court slapped Google with an unprecedented hefty fine on Friday for repeatedly failing to remove illegal content as Russian authorities pile pressure on foreign tech giants.

The US firm was fined 7.2 billion rubles, ($98 million, 86 million euros), the court's press service said on Telegram.

Russia has recently heaped fines on the world's biggest tech companies, accusing them of not moderating their content properly and interfering in the country's affairs.

However the fines that Meta (Facebook), Twitter, Google and other foreign tech giants received stretched into the tens of millions of rubles, not billions.

Interfax news agency reported that the fine was calculated as a percentage of Google's annual earnings.

Meta, which has a hearing in court later today on the same charges, has also been threatened with a revenue-based fine.