Report: Russian min dislikes idea of Websites being equal to mass media

MOSCOW, Feb 25 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Communications and Mass Media Ministry has opposed a bill seeking to equate news aggregators to mass media, business daily Kommersant reported Thursday on its Web site.

“We haven’t seen the bill; we haven’t received it, and we don’t like the idea,” Deputy Minister Alexei Volin said.

The daily reported earlier that the State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, had received for consideration amendments to a law on information, which will make big search engines and mass media equal and cap foreign ownership in them by 20%.

The bill’s authors held no consultations with the ministry. “We think that if the idea reaches its logical end, newspaper kiosks could also be made equal to mass media. We see in kiosks’ windows covers of newspapers and magazines and can read headlines. Look like news aggregators, don’t they?” Volin said.

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