Goodbye internet! Russia prepares to block Google and YouTube | 12/24/21
The Russian authorities have entered the warpath with foreign Internet platforms, taking another step towards the “sovereign Runet” with the isolation of the country from the global network.
On Friday, the Tagansky District Court of Moscow, for the first time in history, imposed turnover fines on Google and Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) for refusing to send information at the request of Roskomnadzor.
The fine for Facebook was 2 billion rubles, and for Google – 7.2 billion rubles, which is four times the maximum annual profit of the latter (1.7 billion rubles, according to SPARK data).
Stop ILV not to play. With respect to Google and Meta, new protocols may be drawn up on the repeated failure to delete content prohibited in the Russian Federation, since they did not delete more than 4.6 thousand materials, the department said.
The billions in fines cover “a small part of the data that violates Russian law,” RKN quoted Interfax as saying.
If no penalties are applied, including traffic slowdown and complete blocking, declared Head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy Alexander Khinshtein.
He added that the size of the fine was calculated based on the data of the Federal Tax Service on the Russian turnover of Google. “Our law does not establish where the turnover fine is calculated in which countries. In theory, the court could impose a general turnover fine on Google from the turnover outside the Russian Federation, ”Khinshtein said.
Roskomnadzor last year began preparations for a possible slowdown in Google services, including Youtube video hosting.
How reported to RBC, RKN requested information from telecom operators on the use of Google Global Cache (GGC) server equipment. These are the key Google infrastructures that are closest to users – in the networks of local operators. These servers store popular content, which speeds up access to Google services: YouTube, Google Maps, Google Play.
Without GGC, content requested by users comes directly from Google servers, and the stream becomes noticeably slower, which is especially sensitive for videos (YouTube).
Roskomnadzor then explained that it was checking the installation of GGC servers for compliance with the law on “sovereign”, and also control the load on the network that arises from these nodes. The representative of the agency added that this procedure is necessary to assess the unified telecommunication network.
“The state is collecting information on where to install equipment under the law on the sovereign Internet and how to implement it in order to filter, including traffic passing through Google Global Cache,” a source told RBC.
“Sit, listen and accumulate defense information”
Back in November 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded to start developing autonomous Internet management systems that would rid the network of the “dominance” of the United States.
The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was instructed to agree with the BRICS countries on the creation of a de facto parallel Internet – their own system of root domain name servers (DNS). Among Russian users from “targeted impacts”.
Obviously, it was not possible to reach an agreement with the BRICS. But a year later, a law “on the sovereign Internet” appeared, which requires not only to ensure the possibility of autonomous operation of the Runet and to introduce minimal control over traffic within the Russian Federation, expanding the functions of Roskomnadzor.
At the end of 2019, the government prepared a list of threats that can be implemented as an official basis for Roskomnadzor to start centralized traffic management in the country.
The list includes: the threat of providing access to prohibited information or blocked resources, threats of cyberattacks and other information means of communication, as a result of which their functioning may be disrupted, threats of disrupting the availability of information online resources of authorities for citizens, threats of violation of information security of automated systems network management of telecom operators and a number of others.
In February 2019, Putin said that the Internet is an invention of the Western special services, “they sit there and everyone listens and accumulates defense information.”