Russia’s new law aimed at further regulating instant messaging services will come into force on 1 January 2018. Sergey Medvedev and Ilya Goryachev of Gorodissky & Partners discuss the new legal obligations that the providers of instant messaging services in Russia will need to comply with. / read more

The ‘localisation amendments’ to Russian Federal Law No. 152-FZ ‘On Personal Data,’ which require that personal data of Russian citizens be collected and operated in Russia, came into force on 1 September. The amendments raised a lot of discussion long before they came into force. Companies and consultants have now fleshed out various risk-based approaches that very much depend on how this law will be applied in practice. However, there is very limited publicly available information on how the authorities actually plan to enforce it, at least against foreign operators, and what line of enforcement will dominate - more conservative or more liberal. Some companies have recently shared that they will be checked by the Roskomnadzor (the federal executive body responsible for the supervision of telecoms, information technology, electronic media and mass communications) according to an earlier approved inspection plan, including regarding the ‘localisation amendments,’ but as yet no outcomes of such inspections have been made publicly available. In general, the business community is still anticipating more precise guidance, but recent official events have provided some insight into current thinking, as Vladislav Arkhipov, Of Counsel at Dentons, explains. / read more

Head of the Roskomnadzor, Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecoms, Information Technologies and Mass Communications, Alexander Zharov, confirmed at a Board meeting held on 20 April that eBay, Google and AliExpress have agreed to keep the personal data of Russian users on servers located in Russia in accordance with the new data localisation law that comes into force on 1 September 2015, according to Russian news agency Interfax. / read more

The new law introducing amendments to the Russian Federal Law on Personal Data and to the Russian Federal Law on Information, Information Technologies and Protection of Information will come into force on 1 September 2016. Irina Anyukhina, Anastasia Petrova and Maria Ostashenko of Alrud Law Firm, Moscow, discuss the nuances of the new law that may give hope to companies affected by the new requirements. / read more

On 1 August 2013, Russia introduced a revolutionary new anti-piracy law, allowing copyright holders to block websites if they contain infringing content or if the website links to infringing content. The new law gives substantial clout to copyright owners but has been heavily criticised by the internet community as being too draconian. David Aylen and Marina Zakharova of Gowlings International discuss the law, the powers it gives to copyright owners, and the criticisms so far. / read more