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Facebook and Twitter asked to register in Russia as organizers of information distribution

Russia’s federal oversight service in the sphere of communications and information technologies has notified internet services Facebook, Gmail and Twitter

MOSCOW, September 26. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s federal oversight service in the sphere of communications and information technologies /Roscomnadzor/ has notified internet services Facebook, Gmail and Twitter about the necessity to be registered in Russia as organizers of information distribution, Maksim Ksenzov, Roscomnadzor’s deputy head, said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper.

“These three resources must make a decision about placing their data centres in Russia, under the laws on bloggers. They are getting prepared to and want to abide by the law,” he said, adding that such services as VKontakte, Yandex and Mail.Ru Group had already been entered in the corresponding register.

In July, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law binding mail services and social networks to place personal data about Russian users only on servers in Russia.

On September 19, the Russian State Duma lower parliament house adopted in the first reading amendments to speed up coming into force of the law binding to keep personal data about Russian on Russian servers. Under the bill, the norms adopted earlier will come into force from January 2015, instead of September 2016.

In May, President Putin signed a law obliging bloggers, whose internet pages are daily visited by more than 3,000 users to comply with requirements applicable to the mass media. Apart from that, the law obliges social networks, search engines and forums to keep information posted by the users for six months.

“We have informed all and we will make them abide by the law this or that way,” Ksenzov said. “They are holding consultations with each other, communicate with Californian legal services. We are also in consultations with them, but so far we are not pressing.