PRESS: Russia wants to regulate work of messengers

MOSCOW, Dec 9 (PRIME) -- The Russian government has prepared a bill that would bind messenger services to networks of connection operators, business daily Vedomosti reported Wednesday.

The government wants to introduce a term of “information and communication services”, as transfer services for text, voice and graphic messages, which are technologically inseparable from connection services, provided by third parties on networks of operators”.

The bill suggests allowing developers of such services to work in Russia only under a contract with a connection operator and force them to notify the communications service of their activities. If a service violates the law, rules of work or a contract with an operator, it should block its traffic until the service corrects its work.

The officials call messengers “organizers of distribution of information,” which “must ensure receipt and transfer of messages in networks of operators.” The exchange of messages can be done only between identified users, they said. It means that messengers should identify users and restrict spam, a manager at a big operator told the daily.

It is evident that the government wants to tighten the screws on such services, an employee at a telecom company said. Prospects of contesting the initiative are not in view, the source said.

The bill was conceived by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media, people from telecom and Internet companies told the daily. The document is discussed by a working group comprising officials and representatives of operators.

A sources said that the communications authority fulfils an order of the presidential administration, insisting on the need to regulate services amid the current geopolitical situation. A source close to the authority confirmed that the Kremlin stands behind the initiative and the communications watchdog is involved into the preparation of the document.

Messengers are now in a gray zone, a person at a big operator said. Networks of operators were long ago equipped with a system enabling law enforcement bodies to listen to subscribers’ talks and read their correspondence, while messengers cannot be eavesdropped although they replace operators in many services.

Mobile operator MTS said that the share of social networks and messengers in its total mobile traffic is at 23%.

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