Page 3 - bne_Tech_0809_2018

Top Stories
August/September 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 3
Recently, rights holders have been increasingly unhappy with the online giant Yandex' search engine for providing links to illegitimate web sites.
Between 60% and 80% of all traffic to illegal web sites is directed by search results, claims the as- sociation for copyright protection on the internet.
"And while Google removes pirate web sites from search results, and the proportion of illegitimate web sites is no higher than 5-7%, for Yandex, this propor- tion could be as high as 30-40% for digital books, " Maksim Ryabyko, the association's general director, was quoted as saying by RBC. "You can't remove links to pirated content from Yandex search results."
But Yandex shrugged off accusations of complicity in online piracy, claiming that it is in compliance with the existing anti-piracy legislation, which
Russian Government Split on Controversial Data Storage Law
Authored by lawmaker Irina Yarovaya, the legislation requires that mobile phone operators and internet companies store recordings of users' calls and online activities for six months, ostensibly in a bid to combat extremism and terrorism. The law was adopted in July 2016 and enacted on July 1, 2018.
On its adoption, the law was severely criticised by civil liberty advocates who argued that the availability of stored data to Russian security services could be viewed as infringement of privacy, also conflicting with EU regulations.
From the business viewpoint, complying with the law is predicted to burden telecom and online companies with an estimated $1.5bn in costs that would cause 0.5-1.0x of additional leverage.
sufficiently protects rights holders.
Meanwhile, users actively apply proxy servers
and other technological tools to get access to illegitimate web sites that are not completely shut down, but blocked on Russian territory.
Among those web sites are torrent trackers, which remain a major source of pirated material. A 2015 court battle against one of the biggest torrent trackers, Rutracker.org, led in blocking access to it, but the web site moved to servers outside Russia and continued to operate.
Although it suffered a decline in user numbers, Rutracker.org is still up and running, with a monthly audience of just under 2mn in the January-June period of 2018, according to research company Mediascope.
Following the law's enactment on July 1, Russian telecom operators immediately complied, while in- ternet companies were still waiting for technological clarifications from the communications ministry.
However, in early August, the economic development ministry slammed the communication ministry's proposed regulations that were supposed to clarify and specify the requirements of the Yarovaya Law.
In a statement published on a government
web site for discussion of legislative acts upon consultations with the local IT industry, the economic development ministry argued that the regulations contradict other existing laws and stipulate excessive equipment costs, while some of the requirements are unrealizable.
The economic development ministry brought
up president Vladimir Putin's decree "On the National Goals and Strategic Tasks of the Development of the Russian Federation through 2024," which puts speeding up of the country's technological development as one of the strategic priorities.