Friday, May 02, 2014

Russia Moves Toward China-Style Internet Censorship - Businessweek

Apparently determined to return to the 1980s

"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.”"
Russia Moves Toward China-Style Internet Censorship - Businessweek

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