Russian Internet on the Way to Pyongyang  · Global Voices
Andrey Tselikov

Global social network and search giants might have to haul their servers physically into Russia. Based on Ilya Repin's seminal “Volga Boatmen.” Images remixed by Andrey Tselikov.
Earlier this month RuNet Echo reported [Global Voices report] on a Moscow municipal deputy who wanted to require all major social networks to store Russian user data on Russian soil. It seems that his request has been heard, or, at the very least, that Russian legislators think alike. As part of a series of revisions of a bill that has recently passed Russia's lower house of parliament, starting on August 1, 2014 all distributors of online content will be required to store 6 months worth of user data in Russia.
These regulations [ru] are part of a package of “anti-terrorist” laws which exert greater government control over the Russian Internet — the law requiring [Global Voices report] that bloggers with 3,000 unique visitors register as mass media is part of the same package. The reason for the 6 months storage clause is simple: to force foreign internet companies to obey the Russian government's requests for information. Under the new regulations any website has to comply with law enforcement requests to produce any information on its users. Unless the data is physically in Russia, however, giants like Facebook and Twitter aren't likely to comply with Russian data subpoenas.
Non-compliance carries administrative fines of 50,000 to 300,000 rubles for the first offence, for organizations and companies. While this might seem like small change (around 8,500 USD) to entities like Google, further noncompliance can be punished with website shutdowns and filtering.
President Putin approves of the new law — on April 24, he spoke [ru] at a public forum on the media, where he directly said that foreign data servers containing Russian information should be moved to Russia. This might be partly due to security fears. During the same press conference he famously noted that the web was developed by the CIA and is still controlled by the agency (perhaps meaning to cite DARPA's involvement with the creation of the Internet).
With the new law the outlook for RuNet is especially dour, at least according to some Russian bloggers. The requirements are essentially impossible to comply with when considering the global nature of the Internet, writes [ru] Egor Kotkin. This is why he is afraid that its implementation may be just a preparatory step in closing off RuNet from the rest of the world – a new Iron Curtain of sorts. Russian Internet guru Anton Nosik is on the same page. In a recent interview to TV Rain he spoke about the harshness of the new laws:
В России устанавливается северо-корейская модель. Это не китайская, эта другая модель. Мы сейчас едем на полном ходу в Пхеньян, мы в Пекин не заезжаем по дороге.
Russia is implementing a North Korean model. This isn't a Chinese model, it's a different model. Right now we are full speed ahead to Pyongyang, and there is no stop in Beijing on the way.