Earlier this month, Booking.com announced that it will comply with Russia’s new law on personal data storage. The global online travel operator will soon transfer all data from the country’s users to a local data center, Russian business daily Kommersant reported. The announcement came after a meeting between Steffen Mueller, Booking.com’s senior manager of infrastructure and …
The United States on Friday announced that U.S. companies can still give users in Crimea access to a range of free online communications services, despite an earlier U.S. ban on providing any services to the region after it was annexed by Russia last year. The decision will allow U.S. Internet companies such as Apple and Google — who previously announced that they were cutting off service to Crimea — …
US social networks, blogs allowed back into Crimea Read More
Russian prosecutors have demanded that the country’s media watchdog block access to sections of Apple’s App Store and Google Play that allow Russian users to download the works of Adolf Hitler and Islamic writer Sa’id bin Ali bin Wahf Al-Qahtani, the Izvestia newspaper reported Thursday. The move follows months of bluster by the watchdog, Roskomnadzor, over the hawking of “extremist” material to Russians by foreign Internet companies. But this time the threat …
Russian regulator to stop Apple and Google from selling Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ Read More
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has blocked access to three websites selling imported food as it strengthens control over the illegal sale of select Western goods sanctioned by Russia, newspaper Izvestia reported Tuesday. The blocked websites sold banned cheeses, according to news website Lenta.ru. Prosecutors have also filed lawsuits against four more online shops that sell …
Russia starts blocking websites selling banned Western food Read More
Facebook has deleted a post by Russian LGBT rights activist Lena Klimova, where she published images of people who have sent her death threats, Russian opposition-minded online publication Meduza reported. The full photo album had been first published on VKontakte (VK.com), Russia’s most popular social network, but Klimova also posted excerpts to her Facebook account. On April 21, …
Controversial post by Russian LGBT activist: VKontakte less restrictive than Facebook Read More
Twitter has blocked a satirical account ridiculing Igor Sechin, the powerful head of state-owned Russian oil giant Rosneft and a long time confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin. The account, @Igor_Sechin, was blocked inside Russia after the state media watchdog Roskomnadzor complained to Twitter that it violated Russian privacy laws. Frequently obscene and ferociously critical of the Kremlin, @Igor_Sechin is among a handful of popular Russian-language Twitter parody …
Russia’s state-controlled telecommunications company Rostelecom informed the government that Google Inc. has moved some servers to Russia to comply with a controversial law requiring Internet companies to store Russians’ personal data within the country’s borders, a person familiar with the matter said Friday. Following a meeting in late March with the communications ministry, a Rostelecom representative who attended the meeting said that …
With the European Commission’s antitrust complaint against Google, Russia’s home advantage in Internet search is evident. Shares of Yandex, Russia’s largest Internet search provider, were up nearly 13% in the last half hour of U.S. trading, while shares of its smaller Russian competitor Mail.ru Group were down 1.7%. Google stock rose 0.6%.
Crimean gamers were locked out of playing popular online multiplayer games World of Warcraft and Diablo III last week, as the game publisher was forced to suspend the accounts in compliance with Western sanctions. Major US Internet and tech companies such as Apple, Google and PayPal have suspended services to Crimean users over the last year. The United States in December barred US-registered companies from investing in Crimea or providing …
US sanctions block Crimeans from World of Warcraft, Diablo III Read More
eBay has become the first US company to say it will comply with the new Russian legislation requiring businesses to store Russian users’ personal data in Russia, business daily Kommersant reported earlier this week. Vladimir Dolgov, eBay’s general manager in Russia, met with a deputy head of telecom regulator Roskomnadzor last week to clarify “a series of questions” related to the law.
From September 1, 2015, companies operating in Russia will be required to store their users’ or clients’ personal data on servers located physically on Russian territory. A white paper released by East-West Digital News, in partnership with EY and leading market players, sheds full light on the legal and organizational aspects of the matter.
Russia’s Ministry of Telecommunications recently developed a draft decree limiting the procurement of foreign software. The ministry intends to establish a register of domestic software developers and oblige state agencies and state-owned companies to buy software only from those on the list. If the registry is missing the necessary software or it does not fit …
