The first time Yandex was fined last year. Then 400 thousand rubles. Now Yandex was threatened with a fine of 6 million rubles. But the court limited itself to 2 million rubles. Yandex pleaded guilty. Why is the IT giant behaving this way? The company says that they simply do not have the ability to comply with the law due to anti-Russian sanctions that do not allow the purchase of foreign equipment and software necessary for storing and transmitting information to security agencies. Experts interviewed by Business FM called the argument unconvincing. Both foreign equipment can be obtained, and domestic analogues are available. Others collect, store and transmit.
It just costs a lot of money. Paying fines is cheaper. It is much more difficult to answer the question why the security agencies behave this way. After all, firstly, a lot of information about what Internet users are doing is stored and transmitted on demand by those who give Russians access to the Web – providers and telecom operators. Secondly, it would be nice to have claims against Yandex because of a search engine or because of Yandex Market – all of a sudden someone studied or ordered something prohibited by law. The company was fined due to the fact that the FSB did not provide information about the users of the Yandex.Services service, a service where cleaners, plumbers, electricians and furniture assemblers are looking for.
The experts found it difficult to answer the question: what is the interest of the special services in such a service? Alternatively, “they demand because they can.” Pavel Katkov, lawyer, member of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Committee on Entrepreneurship in the Field of Media Communications, comments:
“The fact is that the institution of requesting this or that information from the company by law enforcement agencies is very old. And this is their right. This mechanism arose long before the “Yarovaya law” appeared, long before any servers and digital data storage systems appeared at all. And some time must pass before these institutions wither away. As long as the FSB and other law enforcement agencies retain the right to directly request, they will exercise this right, including in cases where court sanctions are required for this.”
But why is the FSB so interested in data on who, when and where called the washing machine repairman? In fact, everyone who enters the register of organizers of the dissemination of information, which is compiled and updated by Roskomnadzor, must comply with the Yarovaya Law. And from “Yandex” there is already “Yandex.Taxi”, “Yandex.Food”, “Yandex.Lavka” and so on. But there are also resources such as YaPlakal, Peekaboo, LiveJournal, Babyblog, Habr, Drome, Tinkoff Bank, Sberbank Online, 2GIS, Avito, BlaBlaCar, VK and other services. It’s easier for law enforcement officers, Denis Kuskov, CEO of the TelecomDaily analytical agency, points out:
General Director of information and analytical agency TelecomDaily
“Law enforcement agencies, the state has a task, if necessary, to track and receive information purely in the direction that it has. Banks have their own things, marketplaces have their own. For example, a mobile operator will not say that this person purchased from Yandex.Delivery. He just doesn’t know it. It is likely that there may be problems with this too.
And here is another interesting detail. About marketplaces. If necessary, law enforcement agencies can perform the task of tracking and receiving information from Yandex Market. But Wildberries and Ozon, for example, are not in the register of organizers of the dissemination of information on the Internet.
