RAEC: 24 out of 39 bills in the Russian IT industry are detrimental to the market

In 2015, the Russian authorities discussed 39 bills affecting the Internet industry and the IT sector as a whole. This is the number counted by the Russian Association of Electronic Communications ( RAEC ).

Here is what the experts of the association write in the preface to the results of the study:

Based on the expert opinion of RAEC, among the legislative initiatives proposed for 11 months of 2015, neutral or positive, we rate 38%, for comparison, for the period 2013-2014, the share of such bills was only 23%, while the number of initiatives slightly increased during the year .

It is also worth noting that among the negatively evaluated initiatives, there is a rather large (about one fifth) number of deliberately “impassable” proposals that were made by individual deputies to increase their own citation in the media and create a public outcry. According to our estimates, the share of such bills will also increase in 2016.

RAEC analysts believe that 24 out of 39 bills in one degree or another are detrimental to the market:
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• A sharply negative assessment, there is a clear threat to the Internet industry - 10 bills
• Negative, potential threat to the Internet industry - 1
• Negative, possible risks - 10
• Neutral - 8
• Positive - 3
• Extremely positive - 4
• Ambiguous - 3

Bills received a sharply negative assessment:

• a ban on the dissemination of false information, detracting from the merits of Russia and its military forces. The ban should also apply to games.

• on expanding the concept of “extremist activity”, it should include the rehabilitation of Nazism and the glorification of Nazi criminals

• on quoting, which should protect Russians from replacing “domestic cultural traditions with the American model”

• “Internet tax”

The following bills received a very positive assessment:

• on the establishment of a 30-day review period for appeals to government agencies, including for e-documents

• on improving the use of e-signatures, including in the work of government agencies and legal entities.

• on increasing administrative responsibility for officials for late submission (as well as for providing deliberately false or refusing to provide) media information

• on resolution of court broadcasts on the Internet

The laws on import substitution and regulation of the work of commodity aggregators were rated "negatively, risks are possible."

The bills received ambiguous assessment:

• on the creation of a public council to promote the protection of morality in the media

• on the prohibition of trade in goods in respect of which, in order to protect the national interests of the Russian Federation, it is prohibited or restricted to conduct foreign economic operations involving their importation into the territory of the Russian Federation

• on the prohibition to transfer information of limited access (or public, but not yet distributed) to foreign states and organizations

“Thus, the tendency predicted a year ago to move away from protective-prohibitive regulation is beginning to be observed,” analysts of RAEC note.

The state recognized the Internet as a serious information channel and began to impose the same requirements on it as on conventional televisions or printed newspapers. Therefore, at first glance, unrelated laws about commodity aggregators and numerous reservations about Nazism, fascism and the protection of children got into consideration by RAEC.

RAEC notes positive changes in the development of the regulatory environment of Russia at a qualitative level:

The apparent change in the vector of legislative initiatives of 2014-2015 was dictated by a complex geopolitical situation, mutual sanctions and the need to ensure the digital sovereignty of the Russian Federation and limit the information and technological dependence of our high-tech industry on the influence of the West.

An important milestone in the development of the regulatory environment was the opposition to the concept of the so-called “Global License”, and “Internet tax”, where for the first time both representatives of the Internet industry and telecommunications companies, and a significant part of copyright holders and content producers, spoke with a common position. This experience has allowed moving on to the long-standing issues of reforming the system of collective management of rights, public domain libraries and orphan works.

The full research report is available here .