Legislation & regulation

Russia blacklists LGBT teen online support group

73 Comments / Internet, Legal, Legislation & regulation, News, Online media / By

A Russian web site that served as a support group for LGBT teenagers has been blacklisted by the authorities and will likely be blocked within the country, news reports said Monday. The site’s name Deti-404 (Children-404), after the online HTTP error message for “page not found,” may prove portentous if Russia’s Internet watchdog Roskomnadzor considers the site to be in violation of a federal law that regulates online …

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Russia’s media watchdog slaps site with warning over religious cartoon

89 Comments / International, Internet, Legal, Legislation & regulation, News, Online media / By

Russia’s media watchdog has issued a warning to an online news site for publishing a religiously themed caricature that lampooned “one of the faiths,” despite an appeal to avoid such cartoons in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack. In line with Russia’s law on extremism, the caricature published by the Respublika news site was seen “to incite various sorts of enmity,” a spokesman for the Roskomnadzor media watchdog, Vadim Ampelonsky, …

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Yes to bitcoin! Russian ministry says quasi-money ban may endanger banks, retailers

61 Comments / Legal, Legislation & regulation, News, Payment & banking technologies, Payments / By

Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development has reacted negatively to the bill to ban cash equivalents, including electronic money, such as bitcoins. It said the proposed ban could hit major telecom operators, retailers and banks hard. The Ministry of Finance has developed a draft law on the introduction of responsibility for handling cash equivalents after President …

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Personal data storage on Russian servers will be mandatory starting from September 2015

1,283 Comments / E-Commerce, International, Internet, Legal, Legislation & regulation, News / By

Last week, the lower house of the Russian parliament adopted amendments making personal data storage on domestic servers mandatory as early as September 2015 – instead of September 2016 as previously foreseen by legislation adopted this past summer. In October, Russian lawmakers had considered an even earlier deadline (January 1, 2015). However, the period allowed for compliance …

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Google shuts down engineering office in Russia: Much ado about nothing?

2,870 Comments / International, Internet, Legal, Legislation & regulation, News, Search engines & SEO / By

Much speculation appeared today in the media following Google’s decision to move about one hundred of its engineers from its Russia office to other locations. A major US site thus suggested that Google’s move could be related to the “changing climate in Russia [which] may lead more Internet companies to move their operations to other …

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Russia blacklists, blocks GitHub over pages that refer to suicide

75 Comments / Internet, Legal, Legislation & regulation, News, Online media / By

Developers in Russia are putting up their feet today — that is, after they have finished stomping around in frustration for a little while. It’s emerged that Russia’s regulator RosComNadzor has blocked GitHub after the popular software and coding collaboration platform was found to be hosting content related to suicide — specifically, see this file that details 32 ways to kill yourself. The “block” …

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