Google (GOOG) Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt warned last year that Russia was “on the path” toward Chinese-style Internet censorship. Vladimir Putin is proving him right. At a meeting with media executives in St. Petersburg on April 24, the Russian president said his government will impose greater control over information flowing through the Internet, which the former KGB lieutenant colonel has called a creation of U.S. spy agencies.
Russia’s Parliament has approved a law similar to China’s that would require Internet companies such as Google to locate servers handling Russian traffic inside the country and store user data locally for six months. The legislation, which is scheduled to take effect on Aug. 1, also classifies the roughly 30,000 Russian bloggers who have 3,000 or more readers as media outlets, making them and the companies that host them subject to regulation. “This law is a step toward segmenting and nationalizing the Internet and putting it under the Kremlin’s control,” says Matthew Schaaf, a program officer at Freedom House, a research group in Washington. “It could have a serious chilling effect on online expression in Russia, making users stop to think how their Google searches and Facebook posts could be used against them.”
Russian intelligence agencies, like their U.S. counterparts, constantly expand their online capabilities, Putin said at the April 24 meeting, adding that Russia must protect its information in a field dominated by U.S. companies. The bill on retaining user data follows a law enacted on Feb. 1 that gives Russia’s communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, the power to block, without a court ruling, websites deemed “extremist” or a threat to public order.
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