Farewell YouTube? What is the threat of the law obliging IT companies to open branches in Russia

State Duma deputies in the third reading approved the so-called “landing” law, which obliges foreign social networks and IT companies with a daily attendance of more than half a million users to open their offices in the Russian Federation, register a personal account on the Roskomnadzor website and comply with Russian law. It will affect not only Russian users, but also hosting providers, operators of advertising systems and organizers of information dissemination on the Internet, since they also work with personal data of citizens. A number of “coercive measures” are provided for violators, for example, exclusion of search engines from the search results and a ban on advertising aimed at Russians.

State Duma Chairman Viacheslav Volodin has already said that regulation of IT giants is a common legal practice in many countries. In his opinion, foreign companies had the opportunity to follow the path of self-regulation, but they did not use it, so legislative regulation is necessary, including the introduction of coercive measures.

Under the new law, companies will have to create branches, open representative offices or register Russian legal entities from January 1, 2022. It is assumed that the branches will fully interact with the Russian regulator, representing the interests of the parent companies. In addition, the law obliges IT giants to install a user counter chosen by Roskomnadzor, create a personal account on the Roskomnadzor website and use it to interact with the authorities. Also, IT giants will have to create and place an online form for Russians' appeals (the content of the form will be determined by the RKN).

Refusal to comply with the new requirements will be fraught with a ban on advertising, search results, collection and transfer of personal data abroad, as well as a restriction on the receipt of funds from Russians. The maximum penalty can be complete blocking.

Of course, this law has caused negative emotions among many Russian users: the remarks "Farewell, YouTube..." or "Farewell, Russia (from the IT giants)" have become the most common in social networks.

However, there were also more optimistic ones. For example, these are:

- Hello vpn 24/7

- The law was passed, it remains to force foreign companies to comply with it. Here's just how to do it if the company does not have economic activity and property on the territory of the Russian Federation. And you can't block anything on the Internet without blocking the entire Internet.