MOSCOW, December 9 (RAPSI) – The Regional Civic Center of Internet Technologies (RCCIT) filed a complaint with Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) that Google LLC had violated antitrust legislation as concerned the abuse of its market power, according to a statement on the body’s official website.

RCCIT reminded that there are grounds to consider that YouTube service owned by Google takes the dominant position on the Russian market in terms of its audience and popularity.

It is to be taken into account that the documents regulating relations between YouTube and its users do not specify laws of what state are to be applied as to these relations; moreover, proceeding from the current text of these documents, it may be presumed that laws of any state may be applicable. The situation where publication and dissemination of video content in Russia are regulated by foreign laws is incorrect, the statement reads.

The terms of the user agreement in effect permit the U.S. corporation arbitrary restrict any accounts; YouTube has practically unlimited right to determine the grounds for banning or removing of materials at its discretion, whereas appeals procedures are practically not clearly outlined and do not permit efficiently restore accounts.

Moreover, Google has possibilities to use its algorithms to regulate what content users will have better opportunity to watch, the RCCIT statement reads.

The organization believes that due to the facts cited above Google violates the rights of the user community at large and contains signs of abuse of its dominant market position, therefore, RCCIT asks FAS to open a respective probe into the American corporation.