• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 12, 2014

Following Google's move to close Google News in Spain, the tech giant now has plans to close its engineering office in Russia.

The Russian parliament asked Google to remove more than 25 links from its search engine in a six-month period in 2013, the Financial Times reports. A new law forces tech companies to keep all data about Russians inside the country's borders, but the news agency reports that it's unclear whether the closure is in response to the country's eroding Internet freedoms or direct pressure on the company.

Google plans to keep other operations in the country, but the nearly 100 engineers will be offered jobs in other countries, per reports. Google has closed engineering offices in other countries in the past for business reasons and moved teams of engineers to other countries, leaving open the possibility that considerations other than a crackdown on the Internet were a factor in the decision.