The Russian authorities are considering a new initiative to force foreign companies to carry out decisions made by Russian courts and state institutions. Non-compliance would be punished with slower Internet access to their sites — in the same way that some mobile phone plans slow Internet access after users exceed a predetermined limit.
The law would target companies which are able to bypass judgments from Russian courts because they are formally registered abroad, The Moscow Times reports.
But whereas mobile operators already have the equipment in place to slow Internet speeds, other companies do not, writes Vedomosti pundit Nikolai Epple. This would cost Rostelecom, Russia’s state-controlled telecom giant, hundreds of millions of dollars to install, for example.
Epple sees “obvious political and repressive motives” behind the initiative, “outweighing economic considerations and adversely affecting end users.”
Under the current legislation, access to both foreign and Russian sites can be blocked for non compliance with a series of laws. For example, the Russian telecom regulator recently blocked access to LinkedIn, which failed to comply with the legislation on personal data storage.
Read Vedomosti’s original version in Russian or the full English version in The Moscow Times.
