Tech giant Google has begun complying with Russian rules on blocking undesirable material — including internationally licensed online gambling sites — from its search engine results.

This weekend, Russian media reported that Google has begun scrubbing its local search engine results of “prohibited internet resources” that have made the blacklist of Russian telecom watchdog Roskomnadzor.

Russian law requires internet giants like Google to connect to the federal state information system (FGIS) to monitor the Unified Register of Prohibited Information, so that blacklisted domains will be automatically blocked from appearing in Russian search results.

Domestic firms such as Yandex and Mail.ru had long since linked their systems to the FGIS, but Google remained a conspicuous holdout. In November, Roskomnadzor opened an administrative case against Google. Two weeks later, Roskomnadzor hit Google with a RUB500k (US$7,500) fine, claiming to have “irrefutable proof filtering is not carried out.”