Amazon refused to help Roskomnadzor block Telegram in Russia

Amazon refused to engage in dialogue with Roskonadzor on the issue of blocking Telegram in Russia, according to a message on the service's website. Google behaved differently, with which, according to the RKN, a dialogue has begun.

Details

• Telegram blocking issues were discussed on Wednesday, April 25, at a meeting of Roskomnadzor with representatives of the IT industry.
• At this meeting, the deputy head of Roskomnadzor Vadim Subbotin said that the service continues to communicate with Amazon and Google and is trying to convince them of the need to stop providing IP addresses to Telegram.
• Contacts with Amazon have not yet led to positive results, possibly for political reasons, Subbotin noted.
• Interaction with Google is becoming more constructive, a substantive dialogue has begun, Subbotin said.

Context

• Roskomnadzor began to block Telegram in Russia based on the decision of the Tagansky court dated April 16.
• Telegram remains accessible to a significant portion of its audience in Russia as it constantly moves from blocked IP addresses to new ones. Some of these addresses are rented by the messenger on Amazon and Google cloud services.
• On Sunday, RNC began blocking IP addresses hosting Google services, causing users to complain about interruptions in its services.
• On Tuesday, US investment bank Morgan Stanley issued a policy brief warning its clients that Yandex would benefit from Google's blocking (The Bell read the bank's note). “Most likely, [Google blocking] is a temporary problem. It is unlikely that it will be blocked completely before the biggest tourism event [the 2018 FIFA World Cup], analysts at Morgan Stanley write. “But this may lead to the fact that more and more users will switch to Yandex.”

The answer to the question whether Google and Amazon will agree to help the Russian authorities block Telegram is largely dependent on its availability in Russia. Another consequence of the confrontation between Telegram and the ILV may be the tightening of state control over the Internet. This can happen if the RKN fails to achieve the goal of blocking the messenger with available resources