UPDATE: Durov says agrees to register Telegram with open data only

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MOSCOW, Jun 28 (PRIME) -- Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov has no objections to adding the messenger to the Russian register of organizers of information distribution if authorities need only open data with no access to personal correspondence, he said on Wednesday on his VKontakte page.

“Head of the communications service (Alexander Zharov) said he does not want to get access to personal correspondence of Telegram’s users and what he expects from us is respect to law in the form of provision if information about the company Telegram,” Durov said.

“Register data about the company-editor of Telegram are not secret and is available for everyone in open sources https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/OC391410. E-mail abuse@telegram.org, where our team receives complaints about content linked to terrorism propaganda, is also public and well known to the communications service.

“If this is all that the regulator wants, I have no objections against using these data to put Telegram Messenger LLP on the register of organizers of information distribution. However, we won’t fulfill the anti-constitutional and unfeasible data retention Yarovaya law as well as other laws that are incompatible with protection of private life and Telegram’s confidentiality policy.”

In cooperation with the Russian communications service, Telegram can promise only the same level of partnership it has in all other countries, meaning joint work on withdrawal of public materials involving propaganda of terrorism, drugs, calls to violence, and children’s pornography, along with anti-spam work.

“I can’t predict the impact of this statement on the regulator’s position, but I’m certain of one thing: if Telegram is really blocked in Russia, it will not happen because we’ve refused to provide data about our company,” Durov said.

The communications service said earlier on Wednesday it received fake notifications on adding Telegram to the register of organizers of information distribution from Twitter users and owners of Telegram channels.

“The communications service received fake notifications of putting (the messenger) on the register via a form on the official Web site …Your honorable motives to register Telegram without participation of its owners are nothing but submission of deliberate misrepresentations to a federal executive entity,” the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media said.

Companies themselves get registered in the register or on request from a government body in charge of the communications service.

On June 23, Zharov called on Telegram publicly to follow the law by filling in a form and submitting it to the service to be added to the register of organizers of information distribution or be blocked.

Durov said then that Russia would not win from possible blocking of the service, which will streamline correspondence of local officials to the U.S.-controlled clouds Apple iCloud/Google Drive via WhatsApp and Viber. The measure will not help in war on terror as well, he said.

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