Putin's inner circle influences Google to remove compromising info about them
Representatives of the Russian government, as well as businessmen and other influential Russian figures, are attempting, through PR agencies, to have investigations, reports, and news about their activities removed from Google search results.
This information comes from an investigation by the publication Proekt, as reported by Ukrinform.
"Those close to Vladimir Putin have many secrets they try to hide from their country’s citizens. Thanks to the efforts of investigators, many secrets made it online, but hired specialists, employed by officials, skillfully cleaned them from the web," writes Proekt.
The investigation claims that, in most cases, complainants relied on the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to remove materials from search engines. Hired PR agents created ‘backdated’ one-day websites that published investigative materials originally released by independent media, then reported to Google that these investigations were allegedly stolen from obscure websites.
According to the publication, services for ‘reputation cleansing’ or ‘digital profile creation’ cost between several million and tens of millions of rubles (ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars). Additional fees apply for ‘negative content removal if a payment to media outlets is required’.
According to Proekt, companies involved in this ‘cleansing’ include PremierMediaInvest and Group-IB. PremierMediaInvest was founded by Sergey Kolushev, who is reportedly a friend of Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov, and Fedor Shcherbakov, the son of Sergey Shoigu's former press secretary Marina Riklina. The company owns 24 small media outlets that publish almost identical ‘positive’ news about officials to boost their visibility in search engine results.
Meanwhile, Shcherbakov left Russia in the fall of 2023 due to a criminal case involving extortion from top managers of Russian state companies. His business partners were detained over these cases, and he himself was later arrested in absentia. The founder of Group-IB, Ilya Sachkov, was sentenced in July 2023 to 14 years in a strict-regime colony on charges of state treason, which, reportedly, does not prevent officials from using his company's services.
Among the investigations reportedly targeted for removal from Google search are materials about Putin's associates, including Sergey Lavrov, Anton Siluanov, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, and Igor Yusufov. Proekt describes the removal of three specific investigations from search results: the vacation of Rosgvardiya director Viktor Zolotov in the Seychelles, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), and articles based on FBK (Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation) investigations about the head of Rosprirodnadzor, Svetlana Radionova.
Separately, Proekt reports that State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin ordered his subordinates to ‘scrub’ from the internet all articles and their copies that fueled rumors about his homosexuality and surrogate children. From 2003 to 2007, a "whole series of unpleasant articles for the politician" appeared in the media, containing direct hints at Volodin’s possible homosexual orientation. Volodin also succeeded in having some publications deemed defamatory by a Russian court and even punished their authors.
According to Proekt, "Volodin's strategy now seems naive," as the more recent approach of hiring agencies to file DMCA complaints with Google for supposed copyright violations has proven to be more effective.
As reported by Ukrinform, the documentary investigation ‘He Returned’, by the Ukrainian publication Kyiv Independent, which covers sexual crimes committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, received the Best Film award at the Press Play Prague festival.