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Russia Adopts Its Own "Right to Be Forgotten" Law - AP


Karamjit

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The new law is full of loopholes and vague terms

The Russian government has passed a bill that will allow any Russian citizen to request online search engines to remove links from their search results, if those links point to material about that citizen's personal or public life and contain outdated information.

The law approved by the Russian State Duma is very similar to the EU's Right To Be Forgotten Law (RTBFL), only that it removes the power from search engines and gives it to state authorities.

In Russia's vision of the RTBFL, search engines can't judge and decide if the information about an individual is still relevant for future searches but have only 10 days to comply with state-issued rulings or face possible sanctions.

This opens the door for abuse, where citizens can remove any online article they don't like, all under the law's umbrella term of "no longer relevant," and using the services of a state apparatus known around the world for its corruption and censorship practices.

There are still issues about how the new law actually works

For now, it is known that Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications) will decide what links need to be removed from search engines, but that's about all.

There are still no written policies to detail the class and types of links that fall under the new law, and just like the European version of the RTBFL, Russia's law doesn't say if the links should be removed worldwide or just locally, in Russia.

This has been a problematic issue for Google in the past, both in Canada and in France, where government officials are trying to force the Mountain View-based search engine to remove links globally, not just for users utilizing the local, national versions of Google's search engine.

Is Yandex facing VKontakte's fate?

While Google may be safe and have the option of backing out of Russia at any time it feels it has no control over its service anymore, Russian-based search engine Yandex is in a much puzzling position.

Only last year, The Verge was reporting how VKontakte (VK), a Russian-based social network, was slowly taken over by Putin-friendly investors while its original founder was forced to step down.

Soon after Putin critics from the VK staff started getting fired, and you probably know what happens now when the government comes calling for information about specific users and their activity.

It is something to ponder about when looking at the big picture and seeing how much the new Russian online privacy law will affect Yandex's activity and quality of service.

If President Vladimir Putin approves and signs the bill, which he undoubtedly will, the new law will take effect starting 2016

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