"They will twist with two clubs"

The state is preparing another attack on rebellious Internet resources

After unsuccessful attempts to block Telegram, the Russian authorities come up with new ways to fight the “violators” of Russian legislation. On the morning of November 26, it became known that the presidential administration has already developed amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses, which increase economic pressure on the company. This was reported by Reuters with reference to three sources.

The bill is about levying a fine of 1% of the annual revenue of the organization that violated the law. “The size of the fine will be at least 1.5 million rubles, even if the company has not earned anything in Russia,” the Reuters publication said. At the same time, it is proposed to fine for each individual offense of the company. These rules can affect the largest market participants: Google, Yandex, Mail.ru, Telegram, Netflix, Tor, VPN, Proxy services, social networks, cellular communication operators and even online stores with online cinemas, the news agency says.

Now, according to the law, search engines, messengers and news aggregators can be fined or blocked for refusing to remove links to blocked sites or to transfer the encryption keys from the correspondence of users at the request of the FSB, as well as for refusing to store the personal data of Russians on servers within the country.

For example, in the case of Google, from which Roskomnadzor demands to prohibit issuing links to blocked resources, the fine would now amount to 700 thousand rubles, but if the proposed amendments will be accepted, then its size will increase to 452 million rubles ( according to the company's report for 2017, Google earned 45.2 billion rubles in Russia - MP ).

According to the Internet Ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev, the economic impact in this case is more productively compared to total blocks that have not led to anything. “At the same time, you need to understand that it is quite difficult to introduce this mechanism, and it requires a serious study,” the Ombudsman told Novaya Gazeta. He noted that the procedure for collecting fines remains incomprehensible, since most companies are not presented in Russia as legal entities, and some services provide services on a free basis and do not receive any revenue.

“It will be easier for them to stop working in Russia, announcing the absence of claims to the Russian market. As, for example, it was with Linkedin. Only in this case, we can face a large number of companies that will behave in this way, ”the Internet defender notes.

Marinichev is sure that the use of these sanctions will hit, first of all, not by companies, but to ordinary users. He explained that, since the Russian market does not occupy such a large share in relation to the rest of the market, foreign companies will proceed from the economic component of the issue: it will be easier for them to leave completely than carrying multi -million dollar losses.

The interlocutor of the newspaper also associates the development of this bill with the fact that in Russia there was a need to force some market participants to submit to the Package of Yarova. “Internet companies do not seek to execute those points that are spelled out in the“ Yarovaya Package ”-unlike Internet providers, which are regulated using the Law“ On Communications ”. Therefore, the only possible way is the system of fines and economic impact that can force them to this, ”concluded Marinichev.

In turn, the lawyer of the Roskomsvobod project, Sarkis Darbinyan, is sure that this initiative can lead to an outflow of part of the audience and the transition of users to use other services. Darbinyan adds that it will be almost impossible to charge fines from some companies - at least because Russia does not have many bilateral agreements with foreign states on mutual assistance in administrative cases. “The same Telegram was fined a year ago, but it is impossible to recover the amount of a fine from it,” the lawyer recalled.

The representative of Roskomsvoboda notes that

The Russian authorities first discussed fines as replacing locks, and now they intend to apply fines along with locks.

“That is, instead of one club, Roskomnadzor and Russian regulators will now twist with two clubs. Such a vertical construction of relations between business and power is doomed to failure, ”Darbinyan said. In his opinion, such initiatives should be considered as "another nail in the roof of the coffin of the Russian IT."

At the same time, the market participants themselves are reluctant to speak about this initiative of the Russian authorities. In Mail.Ru, Yandex, Google and Rambler, they refused to comment. Telegram and Facebook did not answer at all to the requests of journalists.

Recall that the blocking as a punishment for non-fulfillment of Russian legislation is applied to Telegram by decision of the Tagansky District Court of Moscow due to the refusal of the messengers to provide encryption keys from the correspondence of users at the request of the FSB. However, Roskomnadzor failed to completely block access to Telegram in Russia. Moreover, as a result of the actions of the department, third-party resources, for example, Viber, an online school of study of foreign languages ​​Skyeng, Dixy, various cloud storage facilities and many others, were partially or completely inaccessible.

Roskomnadzor did not immediately stop trying to close access to the messenger. In August, Reuters reported that the FSB, Roskomnadzor and the Ministry of Communications allegedly conducted tests on Rostelecom networks of another method for blocking individual protocols, including MTPROTO and SOCKS, which are used by Telegram. However, they, according to the agency, led to a violation of the work of not only the messenger, but also other applications.

Questions on the implementation of Russian legislation arise in the Russian department not only to Telegram, but also to Facebook and Twitter. Representatives of Roskomnadzor, until mid -December, intend to check whether the companies were able to execute those points that are spelled out in the Yarova Package, in particular, begin to store data on Russian users in Russia. The head of the regulator, Alexander Zharov, even threatened to block Facebook in 2018 if the company does not fulfill the law on the localization of personal data.

The department also has claims to Google: Roskomnadzor already “invited” the company's representatives to take part in the preparation of an administrative protocol for refusing to connect to the register of blocked sites - this is necessary that Google knew which sites are blocked in Russia and not issued links to them.