📋 Tender Overview
The State Duma adopted in the second and third readings a parliamentary bill proposing amendments to Article 15-6-1 of the Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection.”
This article was introduced in 2017 and regulates the procedure for limiting access to copies of blocked sites. In particular, this article establishes a ban on posting on the Internet sites that are confusingly similar to a site, access to which is limited by decision of the Moscow City Court due to copyright infringement.
Now reports about “mirrors” are received by the Ministry of Digital Development, and it transmits the information to Roskomnadzor. According to the new amendments, those who discovered the “mirror” will be able to complain directly to Roskomnadzor. He will also make a decision on recognizing the site as a copy of a prohibited one (now this decision is made by the Ministry of Digital Development). The innovation will reduce the process of restricting access to mirrors to two days, as stated in the explanatory note.
The bill also eliminates the existing legal gap. Now the obligation to stop issuing information about “mirrors” in a search engine rests solely with the operators of such systems that distribute advertising. If the operator does not distribute advertising, then, accordingly, it does not fall under the specified requirements of the law. In this regard, the amendments impose the obligation to stop issuing information about the “mirror” on all operators, regardless of whether they distribute advertising or not ( 537002-8 ).
For the second reading, the draft included amendments that also removed from a number of other norms the definition of “distributing advertising on the Internet that is aimed at attracting the attention of consumers located on the territory of the Russian Federation.” As a result, almost everywhere, instead of a search engine operator distributing such advertising, there will be simply a search engine operator. And, accordingly, the established requirements (in particular, the need to stop issuing information at the request of its subject) will apply to all operators, and not just those distributing advertising in the Russian Federation.
