Tech giants Google, Facebook and Twitter are reportedly been ordered by the Russia’s communications regulator to register as “organizers of information distribution,” to avoid being blocked in the soil, claims a new report.
The websites are required to comply with Russian regulations that require them to obtain registration in the same league as VKontakte, Mail.ru and Yandex. Failure to comply with the laws can eventually make their websites inaccessible to the local population.
Izvestia has reported that the Russian regulator Roskomnadzor has already notified the 3 companies about the regulation, but so far there is no response. Besides these companies, the regulator has likely requested the bloggers, with more than 3,000 visitors per day, also to register.
While the tech giants have chosen not to comment, the US government has come out against the Russian mandate requiring local storage, in an argument that Edward Snowden’s revelation of NSA mass surveillance should not form the basis for any country to break the internet.
It is believed that the effects of Russian law will have larger fallout and create a Russian internet and force foreign data service operators out. Yet another thorn in the flesh is the law that requires data centres to use algorithms that have been locally formulated making it easier for security agencies to snoop on unsuspecting citizens.
