Government experts advocated the anonymity of messengers

The working group of the Expert Council under the government gave a negative conclusion on amendments to the legislation governing the work of Internet mixers. According to Kommersant, according to experts, the adoption of amendments is fraught with the "degradation of Runet."

According to the curator of the working group "Communication and IT" Irina Levova, the conclusion was sent to the media -communication union that developed amendments. “We are convinced that the bill affecting the entire market should be widely discussed, and not the same as now, sipped,” Levova said. The amendments of the ISS "cause extreme concern" in experts, the conclusion said.

Most of the Russian Internet industry will fall under the bill, the conclusion said. Due to the ambiguity of the formulations and the inability to fulfill these requirements, access to these resources can be limited, since the formulations allow us to apply the norms of the bill to any placement by the user of content on the network. Thus, the bill violates the constitutional rights of citizens, as it clearly limits the privacy in communication between users on the Internet. The ISS project contradicts Articles 23 and 55 of the Constitution, follows from the conclusion of government experts.

"The adoption of the bill in its current form may lead to a large number of players and the total degradation of the Internet industry from the Russian market," the document says.

According to TNS for March 2016, the most popular messengers in Russia included VKontakte (10.6 million people), WhatsApp (9.5 million people) and Viber (7.7 million people). Next are Skype, Odnoklassniki, Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, Telegram, Mail.ru Agent and ICQ.

In mid -August, the media communication union, uniting the largest Russian communications operators, proposed to oblige to identify users and delete the prohibited information. Amendments to the laws on communications and the media provide that any "organizer of the dissemination of information on the Internet that provides the possibility of exchange of electronic messages" is obliged to identify users on the basis of information contained in the databases of communications operators, having previously concluded agreements with them. As well as "immediately block messages or publications that contain information distributed in violation of the requirements of Russian legislation." Otherwise, operators have the right to limit access to the service by decision of Roskomnadzor.

The Major Operators of the Big Three are not the first to try to limit the distribution of services using the signal transmission technology without contact with the communication operator. In 2010, Megafon introduced restrictions on calls from abroad using Skype. Three years later, MTS offered the Ministry of Communications and Roskomnadzor to licensed the activities of Skype and other online services, as they compete with operators, but are not regulated.

Officials did not support the idea, explaining that the operators of these services outside Russian jurisdiction, and their activity does not formally fall under communication services.

In early August, the Ministry of Communications abandoned the idea of ​​adjusting the work of VOIP operators, including services such as Skype, WhatsApp and Viber. Also, from the new version of the project, which establishes the rules for the interaction of communication operators, the ban on VoIP subscribers in the network of other operators disappeared. At the same time, the project remained in the project about the need to pay compensation to essential operators.