Matviyenko: Russia should force foreign IT giants to respect law

MOSCOW, Mar 2 (PRIME) -- Russia should work out measures to force foreign IT giants to comply with the requirements of the communications service and the country’s laws, Valentina Matviyenko, chairwoman of the Federation Council, the parliament’s upper house, told PRIME in an interview published on Tuesday.

“We do not speak of toughening, but regulation. A lot of matters are not regulated legally. We hoped by adopting laws earlier that such large and respected Internet companies would not have dared to disregard our laws. They were laws-warnings, I’d put it like that. We were mistaken, they ignore our laws. Now we should prepare the measures to push them to comply unconditionally with the requirements of the communications service,” Matviyenko said.

The steps should also include an obligation of Western social networks and large IT companies to register their representative offices in Russia and pay taxes to the country’s budget, she said.

End