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Google, Apple fail to explain their position to Russian senators

According to Deputy Head of Roskomnadzor Vadim Subbotin, the Apple representative was unable to explain the motive of the company’s actions and the Google representative had no power of appointment, so he was not questioned

MOSCOW, September 16. /TASS/. Apple and Google provided no explanation for their actions at the meeting of the Federation Council Commission on interference in Russian elections, says Vadim Subbotin, Deputy Head of the Federal Service for Supervision in Communications, IT and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor).

"The representatives of the companies were unable to explain their position. The colleagues representing Apple were unable to explain the motive of the company’s actions, the ignoring of requests from the Prosecutor General’s Office and Roskomnadzor," he said.

The Google representative had no power of appointment, so he was not questioned.

Earlier, Roskomnadzor warned foreign IT companies against interfering in Russian elections. Under the request of the Central Electoral Commission and the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia, Roskomnadzor and the Center for Monitoring of Control over Public Communication Networks sent notices to a number of foreign companies, including DNS and CDN providers, demanding they stop providing options for the circumvention of access restrictions to the Smart Vote website and phone app in Russia.

Non-compliance with such demands constitutes a gross violation of Russian law and "will be viewed as foreign meddling in the electoral campaign."

According to Russian IT watchdogs, over 10 foreign providers located in the US, Ukraine, Germany, France and Japan provide opportunities to circumvent access restrictions. The legal requests stating that provision of access restriction circumvention is illegal are being ignored by the Apple and Google app stores, the DNS and CDN services of Google, Cisco, Cloudflare and a number of other companies. The access to the abovementioned resources must be restricted in order to prevent illegal campaigning and foreign interference in any form, Roskomnadzor underscored.