Everyone knows that in Russia anything goes. [It is not surprising that in the past five years Russia has introduced stricter laws in the technology sector. For example, search engines are removing “inappropriate” search results, while at the same time messaging service providers are being forced to share encryption keys with Russian security services. In the case of social networks, Russian users\’ data must be stored on Russian servers.
The Internet Communications Supervisory Authority has already attacked Facebook and Google several times in recent months for not complying with local laws. For this reason, the Putin administration has prepared severe fines. Under the proposal, companies that do not comply with Russian rules would be fined up to 1% of their annual revenue in Russia. Google generated 45.2 billion rubles in revenue in Russia in 2017. This translates to 15.7 billion Czech crowns. According to the proposed amendments, the fine would be imposed on one company for each violation found.
Currently, Russia uses two means to comply with the law. Currently, Russia uses two means to comply with the law: the aforementioned fines, which can run into the thousands of dollars, or, of course, blocking the offending service. Currently under investigation by the Internet Communications Supervisory Service “Roskomnadzor,” Google faces a fine of up to 700,000 rubles.
Roskomnadzor also warned Facebook in April 2018 that it could block its business in Russia if it did not comply with its rules. Specifically, the company would have to comply with a key condition, namely that the data of the aforementioned Russian users be stored in Russia and not elsewhere abroad.
However, this was not the first warning; Facebook had been warned the previous year, but failed to correct it. It is also possible that they were warned to crack down on Russia for compliance based on LinkedIn\’s famous experience of being blocked for not heeding warnings.
