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Return of US tech companies would pull Russia back into 90s, 'dependency' — IT CEO

According to Natalya Kasperskaya, should they return to Russia, these American companies will hold on to their "usual approach," that being predatory pricing, enormous discounts, lobbying, and bribery

MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/. The return of American tech giants to the Russian market would plunge the country back to the 1990s, when the former USSR was actively colonized and saturated by cheap technologies, Natalya Kasperskaya, head of the Russian association of software developers, Domestic Software, wrote in a column for TASS.

She pointed out that the business community was looking for a reason to restore its trust in the returning US companies. "But, excuse me, how can you restore confidence in scammers? They took the money, while failing to provide the product and its maintenance, violating all signed contracts. What is that if not fraud?" she said.

According to Kasperskaya, should they return to Russia, these American companies will hold on to their "usual approach," that being predatory pricing, enormous discounts, lobbying, and bribery. "It is no secret that Oracle, IBM and Intel pay the largest bribes," she added.

"This ‘return’ will be akin to slipping back into the 90s, when the former USSR was actively colonized and saturated by cheap Western technologies, with the country’s entire technological potential and production capacity being destroyed at the same time," she opined.

The Domestic Software head also added that she believes that market saturation of foreign technologies in Russia would hurt the country: the domestic development of technologies would slow down, the "dependency" would return, and there would be data leaks and opportunities for remote control. In place of healthy competition, there would be monopoly, she concluded.

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