Cost of Internet services to double – expert

A market expert has announced that Internet access costs are expected to double in order to cover the costs of the latest government initiative to make the Internet more child-friendly.

The adopted bill on Internet filtration might see Internet providers raising costs from 200-300 roubles to 500-600 roubles for basic monthly packages, according to Matvei Alexeyev, head of the Fund for Technology and Infrastructure Development.

New amendments to the federal law “On protecting children from malicious information” are coming in force on November 1 and might affect the entire fast-growing industry.

Providers not ready

“I communicate with all the main service and hosting-providers, and technically, none of them are ready to comply with the new demands,” Alexeyev said at the Russian Internet Week conference on Thursday.

Attempts to observe the recently introduced federal law without developing special filtration mechanisms could potentially cause a “mess” at communication centres, he added.

“Furthermore, attempts to block websites might result in a communications breakdown in the Russian segment of the Internet,” Interfax quoted him as saying.

Extra time to comply

The bill was initiated to block dangerous content for children and was swiftly adopted this summer amidst fears that it could impose censorship to Russia’s freest form of media.

The new rules will make it possible for the authorities to block websites without a respective decision being made by court, as well as establishing a blacklist of malicious pages.

Providers will have five extra days to comply with the new rules after the bill comes into effect, Yekaterina Larina, head of the media policy department at the Communications Ministry, told Interfax.

“A special order is to outline the method of collaboration between the blacklist operator and the market players,” he said.

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