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Internet Day is marked in Russia on Monday

The importance of observing free Internet principles in Russia has been repeatedly emphasized at the highest level

Photo ITAR-TASS / Artyom Starikov

Photo ITAR-TASS / Artyom Starikov

MOSCOW, September 30 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian users of the World Wide Web mark the Internet Day on Monday. It was precisely on the last day of September in1998 that the Infoart Stars IT company suggested counting up Internet users in the Russian Federation: at that time one million users accessed the Internet.

According to the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), 50.1 million people in Russia, or 43% of the country's residents of age access the Internet every day. The number of people of age who access the Internet if only once in 24 hours has grown over the past year by 13%, and that of people above 18 years of age using the Internet if only once a month is 64.4 million. Among the latter, more than a half lives in large cities.

The North-Western Federal District is in the lea in Russia by the Internet penetration: over there, 62% of people use the Internet. Russia ranks first in Europe by the number of Internet users. There are three domain zones in Runet now: .RU, Cyrillic. RF, and .Su that has remained intact since the breakup of the Soviet Union. In the .RU zone, there are now almost 4.8 million names. There are 820,000 names in the "younger" .RF. By these indicators, Russia is also one of world leaders.

The importance of observing free Internet principles in Russia has been repeatedly emphasized at the highest level. President Vladimir Putin stated earlier in his remarks at the meeting with the participants in the Seliger Camp, "Our common approach remains unchanged: the Internet is a space of freedom". The head of state believes that in the Internet, "just as is the case in any other public space, it is essential to observe certain rules and be guided by law".

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