Russian telecom operators want to put an end to anonymity on the Internet

And in parallel to strike at all messengers and other services, providing the ability to conduct correspondence

According to a number of Russian publications , the Union of Cellular Operators is preparing a bill according to which all owners of instant messengers and other services or resources that provide the ability to conduct correspondence will have to identify users and, if necessary, remove prohibited information.

This document, in fact, is an amendment to the legislation on "communications and the media" and will oblige to identify all users on the basis of databases of telecom operators, access to which services can be obtained by entering into preliminary agreements with them.
')
This is not the first attempt of operators, primarily cellular, to limit the distribution of messengers in the territory of the Russian Federation. Previously, they had already come forward with an initiative to license Skype activities, and Megafon limited the reception of calls from Microsoft service coming from abroad. Then the lawmakers did not support the operators and the latter were left with nothing.

Now, against the background of the anti-terrorist bill Yarovaya-Ozerov , adopted and signed by the president , the requirements of mobile operators look redundant. Plus, all responsibility for implementing the proposed law is shifted to the owners of the services, and for violations, the operators plan to get the right to restrict access to them in the territory of the Russian Federation.

For a number of objective reasons, a significant part of the services, for example, Telegram, simply will not be able to meet the new requirements and will be blocked. Also, the very vague wording “the organizer of information dissemination on the Internet, providing the possibility of exchanging electronic messages” allows you to attack any Internet resource, leaving the possibility of correspondence and / or publication of messages.

Thus, the services of domestic Internet giants Yandex and Mail.ru Group are already on this list (the latter are the mail.ru Agent and ICQ messengers, the social networks VK and Odnoklassniki, which are also already mentioned in the list of distributors of information). The representative of Mail.ru has already called the projected requirements against the background of the “Spring Package” redundant, in “Yandex” noted that the new law cancels anonymity on the Internet, while other companies have refrained from commenting.

The main motivation for another attempt to impose regulation of instant messengers is the financial loss of cellular operators. At least 20% of subscribers constantly use the services of instant messengers, which over the past year has led to a decrease in operators' revenues by 2%. It all looks as if people are trying to get back to the use of expensive SMS / MMS and long-distance / international calls instead of free messages on the Internet.