MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that allows the Central Electoral Commission, as well as regional and district electoral commissions, to contact the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications, asking to stop the dissemination of illegal campaigning materials in the Internet. The law has been published at the official legal information website Tuesday.

According to the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional legislation and state building First Deputy Chairwoman Irina Rukavishnikova, this law extends the existing electoral norms to Internet campaigning. The new law amends, inter alia, the law on elections to the State Duma, as well as the law on information, IT and information protection.

The application procedure will be defined by the Central Electoral Commission. The electoral commissions now can also set the rules for production and dissemination of campaigning materials in accordance with the electoral law.

The law regulates the mechanism of Federal Service’s response to electoral commissions’ applications. The law also stipulates that the owner of a website must remove the violating materials within 24 hours since notification; otherwise, access to the resource will be restricted.