At the place of correspondence

The State Duma adopted in the second reading a bill on the regulation of messengers. This is reported by Interfax.

Amendments adopted for the second reading, owners of messengers - Russian citizens and Russian legal entities allowed not to conclude agreements on user identification with operators, but to independently carry out such an identification by a mobile phone number. At the same time, Russian owners of messengers are obliged to store data on user identification only in the country and not transfer them without the consent of the user to third parties.

An amendment was also adopted to restrict the transfer of messages. The administration of the messenger will, at the request of Roskomnadzor, during the day, block the possibility of transmitting messages for a particular user, as well as the forwarding of “prohibited information” as a whole. Also, owners of messengers will be obliged not to allow the transfer of messages to users "in cases and the manner determined by the government." Thus, it will be possible to prohibit the distribution of absolutely any information through messengers.

To block access to messengers who do not comply with the requirements of the law can only be through the court. According to the first version of the bill, Roskomnadzor could independently limit access to insurance services.

The deputies changed the determination of the messenger in the new version of the bill. Now, this word means information systems or programs intended to exchange messages "exclusively between users of these systems or programs" and do not provide for the possibility of publishing information on the Internet for universal access and sending messages to the "indefinite circle of people".

The bill retains the provision on the obligation of messengers' owners to send official messages from state bodies to all users.

On June 14, the document was adopted in the first reading . Then the deputy from the LDPR Andrei Lugovoi opposed its adoption, who at the end of 2013 acted as one of the initiators of the law on extra-court blocking sites with calls for inconsistent promotions, allowing you to close access to Internet resources as soon as possible.

The bill was submitted to the Lower House on May 24 by Unicorn Marina Mukabenova, reference Oleg Nikolaev and communist Alexander Yushchenko.

According to the bill, users of these services must be identified without fail.

A number of requirements are established for the owners of messengers. Among them, providing users with the opportunity to abandon unwanted messages, as well as the launch of the cessation function or, on the contrary, the organization of mass mailing at the request of the state.

Through messengers, it is forbidden to transmit "information distributed in violation of the law." The Service Administration is obliged, at the request of the state, to block the sending of such messages.

New rules are planned to be introduced from January 1, 2018.

According to the current "Yarovaya Law" to the owners of instant messengers, as well as other "organizers of the distribution of information", it has already been entrusted with the obligation to hand over the keys of messages at the request of the FSB.

In Russia, since spring, mass blocking of instant messengers has continued for refusing to register as distributors of information and cooperate with the authorities. On April 10, access was closed to the popular Zello Internet . On May 2 , BlackBerry, IMO and Line messengers got into the register of prohibited sites.

At the end of June, the Telegram messenger was under threat of blocking. The head of Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov, demanded that Pavel Durov register the service in the register of information distribution organizers. As a result, the department brought the messenger to the register , but Durov promised not to fulfill the "Yarovaya Law" .