Russia Tries To Force Facebook, Twitter To Relocate Servers To Russia (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Russian government agency responsible for censorship on the Internet has accused Facebook and Twitter of failing to comply with a law requiring all servers that store personal data to be located in Russia. Roskomnadzor, the Russian censorship agency, "said the social-media networks hadn't submitted any formal and specific plans or submitted an acceptable explanation of when they would meet the country's requirements that all servers used to store Russians' personal data be located in Russia," The Wall Street Journal reported today. Roskomnadzor said it sent letters to Facebook and Twitter on December 17, giving them 30 days to provide "a legally valid response." With the 30 days having passed, the agency said that "Today, Roskomnadzor begins administrative proceedings against both companies." The law went into effect in September 2015, but Russia has had trouble enforcing it. "At the moment, the only tools Russia has to enforce its data rules are fines that typically only come to a few thousand dollars or blocking the offending online services, which is an option fraught with technical difficulties," a Reuters article said today.

According to The Journal, "Facebook and Twitter could be fined for not providing information to the watchdog."

Comments

Will they even have a choice?

[SuperKendall]

Seems like at some point if you want to keep working in some countries you have to do as they say. See: China.

Re:Not to worry, Comrade!

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I agree it may not be any better, but it surely has the potential to be worse.

I mean, Facebook servers operating in Russia, what could possibly go wrong?

Re:Bigger fines will get attention

[Cederic]

The US has no law that prevents its citizens from using online services anywhere in the world.

Of course it does. Try using a service from Iran or Cuba. Try using an online gambling site.

No, it is not reasonable for countries to demand that data about citizens reside in some specific country for "audit"

Of course it is. That it's a serious fucking pain to comply with doesn't make it unreasonable, it makes it a cost of doing business in that country.

A Russian citizen sees an advertisement for my product in a magazine. They mail my company an international money order, and we ship them the product. Do I have to have an office space in Russia in which to physically store their name, address and invoice information since I have it written down in a ledger in some other country? How reasonable is that?

Wait, you want to import products into Russia without complying with Russian law? I'd say you're being the unreasonable cunt here.

If Russia cannot compete in this space, and cannot attract users (even within their own country) to services created within Russia, then they pass laws like this to try and get their grimy fingers on at least some of the data.

Or maybe they believe that data residency helps reduce their citizens' exposure to corporate malpractice, as epitomised by companies based in California.

Anyway, nice attempt at spinning this and justifying Russia's lack of rights and privacy abuses against its own citizens.

Russia's misbehaviour towards its own citizens doesn't excuse your attempts to be just as big a cunt towards them.