UPDATE: Messenger regulation bill needs amendments – ministries

(Adds expert comments in last three paragraphs)

MOSCOW, Jun 7 (PRIME) -- The Russian communications and economic ministries think that a bill on messenger regulation, earlier submitted to parliament, needs amendments in a second of three mandatory readings, the ministries’ officials said late on Tuesday.

Vasily Shipilov, deputy director of the Economic Development Ministry’s department of tariff regulation, said that the bill’s definition of a messenger could be applied to other programs, like Skype, involving video and audio calls.

“Such programs work without mobile connection, as they’re installed on desktops. I wonder how these programs could be understood in terms of the bill,” he said.

A group of deputies submitted the bill in May to strengthen control over messengers by obliging them to sign contracts with mobile operators to identify users.

Interrelations between messengers and mobile operators are not clear enough. Mobile operators could provide pay services to companies-developers and messenger operators, and expenses could be imposed on users.

“Let’s say, messengers could charge fees, just a token, but all the same,” the official said.

Deputy Communications and Mass Media Minister Dmitry Alkhazov said that if the identification is paid for, its procedure raises a lot of questions.

“The most important thing is that if we try to trace anonymous users of popular messengers with the help of the bill, we should remember that they could pass the same procedure with SIM cards of foreign operators. In this case, we won’t know anything, and threats won’t be tackled by the bill,” Alkhazov said.

To become law, the bill must be approved by the State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, in three readings, and by the Federation Council, the upper house, in one reading before being signed by the president.

Arseny Shcheltsin, director for project activities at the Internet Development Institute (IDI), said that it is too early to speak about pay messengers. “It depends on the government’s bylaws. We should remember that messengers now pay for SMS confirmations and system support while remaining free,” he said.

“On the basis of expert opinions, the IDI finds essential to refine the document: make definitions more precise, the identification clearer, along with additional issues necessary to implement the bill.”

The initiative should not become a burden for users and an unbearable task for messengers, the expert said.

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