Google Closing Engineering Office In Russia

Posted by Soulskill on Friday December 12, 2014 @01:49AM from the if-you-can't-stand-the-bears-get-out-of-the-kitchen dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The Wall Street Journal reports (paywalled) that Google is closing its engineering office in Russia. This follows ever-increasing crackdowns from the Russian government over internet freedoms, and intrusive data-handling requirements on internet companies. "[A] new law that takes effect next year requires information on Russian citizens to be stored in data centers in Russia. The law will also penalize Web firms for infringing on personal data rules in the country. Another law passed earlier this year requires bloggers with 3,000 or more daily readers to register with the government and provide their home address. The ruling prevents these bloggers from using foul language and forbids them from spreading false information."

1 of 157 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Re:50 engineers by trparky · 2014-12-12 03:10 · Score: -1, Troll

And you're going to be seeing a lot more companies that have operations in Russia doing the same thing. Don't be surprised that by next year there will be no foreign companies operating in Russia and Russia wants it that way.

Basically, Russia has said in no uncertain terms that they don't want to play ball with the rest of the world. Their latest actions have shown that they want to become an isolationist and cut themselves off from the rest of the world. "We're Russia! We don't need the world! We can survive without you!" That's basically what Russia is saying.

OK Russia, can we have that block of IP addresses that you're not going to be using now that you've cut yourself off from the global Internet?