A top manager of the Moscow office of Google was placed in a hotel under an assumed name after the Russian authorities demanded that the Smart Voting app be removed from the app store. This was reported by the Washington Post, citing «people familiar with the situation.»
The name of the employee is not mentioned in the article, but it is known that Google Russia is headed by Yulia Solovieva.
According to the publication, in September 2021, “Russian agents” came to the top manager’s house and threatened the company employee with prison if she did not delete the application. After that, she was placed in a hotel under a pseudonym. However, according to WP sources, FSB officers found her there too. The top manager of Google was told that “the clock is ticking”.
A few hours after the visit of the security forces to the hotel to the top manager, the Smart Voting application disappeared from the appstores of Google and Apple, the newspaper writes.
Both app stores blocked the application of politician Alexei Navalny, which contained lists of candidates supported by him as part of the Smart Voting project, on the morning of September 17, the first day of the three-day voting in the State Duma elections. Also, at the request of Roskomnadzor, the Google Docs service blocked documents with Smart Voting recommendations.
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