Khabarovsk court against Yandex

The Khabarovsk court ordered Rostelecom to limit access to Wikipedia, KinoPoisk and Yandex

The company "Rostelecom" protests the blocking of Yandex and Wikipedia in Khabarovsk. This was reported on Wednesday by the press service of Rostelecom . The Khabarovsk court ordered the provider to limit access to these sites for extremist links posted on them, in particular, to the book of Adolf Hitler "Mine Campf". Rostelecom believes that there are no more grounds for blocking the site, since all prohibited links are removed. Earlier, the intention to appeal the decision of the Khabarovsk court to restrict access to the site was announced by Yandex .

The fact that pages with extremist sites on Yandex, Kinopoisk and Wikipedia should be blocked by Rostelecom (this is the only Internet provider in the Vyazemsky district of the Khabarovsk Territory), it became known on March 4. A copy of the court decision is published on the website of Wikipedia . The decision was made on February 5. If companies do not have time to protest it, it will enter into force on March 10. The prosecutor's office of the Vyazemsky district of the Khabarovsk Territory found links to the film "Eternal Jew", recognized in Russia with extremist, in the search data of Yandex. The link to the same film, according to the prosecutor's office, was contained on one of the pages of the Kinopoisk site. On the website of Wikipedia, the prosecutor's office found a link to Hitler's book "Mine Campf". Rostelecom was obliged to block access to these sites. Now that all the prohibited links are deleted, Rostelecom is going to protest the lock of Yandex and Wikipedia. The same intends to do the same in Yandex. She reported this in a press release:

"We learned about the existence of this court decision only today.

Neither the prosecutor's office nor other authorized bodies in the process of consideration of this case turned to us

Neither the prosecutor’s office nor other authorized bodies in the process of consideration of this case turned to us. At the moment, our lawyers are studying the possibility of appealing this decision in court on the basis that neither Yandex, nor Kinopoisk, the largest database of films, directors and actors, were involved in participation in this case, although this resolution clearly affects their rights and legitimate interests. The court instructs Rostelecom to limit access to IP addresses to Video.yandex.ru and kinopoisk.ru on the basis of the fact that the pages of yandex.ru/video/search?text= and kinopoisk.ru/film/79500 allegedly posted the movie "Eternal Jew", recognized as extremist and recognized as extremist and forbidden to distribute in Russia. Note that this film was not posted for any of these links and could not be posted: the link Yandex.ru/video/search?text= is an empty search query to search for Yandex by video, and by the Kinopoisk.ru/film/79500 reference, only the film's reference card, release date, actors and actors and actors and actors and actors and actors and actors and actors and actors and actors and actors and actors and actors and actors, actors and actors and actors, actors and actors T.D. KinoPoisk really collected information about more than 400 thousand films and series, but the project does not show films - he talks about them.

Unfortunately, this case is far from the only one in our practice. Currently, we have a fairly large number of such decisions made in various regions of Russia in relation to our resources. Many of them are already in the process of appeal, since we have no other opportunity to influence the situation. We will learn about such decisions only by accident or upon the appeal of our users, when the lock from the operator has already taken place. If we receive appeals from the prosecutor’s office in a pre -trial order or when we manage to participate in the process until the decision is made, we, as a rule, have to prevent blocking, explaining our position and explaining the technical features of the functioning of the services. ”

The press secretary of Yandex Asya Melkumova in an interview with Radio Liberty added:

- There are no content related to the film “Eternal Jew” on the links indicated in the court decision. Such films have never shown in Kinopoisk . There is only a card with a description of the picture, a reference card, and there you can find out when the film was shot, who shot the film, who starred in it. As for Yandex, the court decided that Yandex published a file with the film, and gives a link in his decision, but this link is “broken”. If you repeat it yourself and enter it in any browser, you will see that this is an empty search query in the Yandex-Video service. We do not quite understand that we need to block.

The chief analyst of the Russian Association of Electronic Associations Karen Ghazaryan said that the decision of the Khabarovsk court to block Yandex, Wikipedia and Kinopoisk will most likely be challenged:

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This is absolutely illiterate from either the technical or from a legal point of view. The judge did not figure out that the search engine is not responsible for what is happening in the world, and blocking the search engine is useless and wrong

- This is absolutely illiterate from either the technical or from a legal point of view. The judge did not figure out that the search engine is not responsible for what is happening in the world, and blocking the search engine is useless and wrong.

-If Yandex and Rostelecom cannot be convinced of the court not to disable these Internet resources, what damage can, for example, Yandex, if it is banned from access to the Khabarovsk Territory?

-Still, I would exclude this option. So far, practice shows that even when local courts made such decisions, in higher instances there are still people who are versed in network technologies, and such decisions refute. I do not think that it will be possible to talk about real damage.

This is not the first case in the history of the Russian Internet, when the prosecutor's office tries to block access to sites. In 2010, the court in Komsomolsk-on-Amur ordered the local provider to close users access to YouTube and four other resources. Extremist materials were discovered on these sites, in particular, a video from the corresponding federal list was posted on the video hosting. Representatives of Google then said that the decision of the district court of the city limits the right of users to free access to information. The company emphasized that the court decision means closing access to all videos on the service, and not just to the one that was recognized as extremist. After extremist materials were removed, access to sites became possible again.