Vladimir Putin signed a law banning services that allow access to sites blocked in Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the law prohibiting access to technologies for bypassing website blocking. Information about this was published on the website of legal information. The amendments made to the Federal Law "On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection" imply a ban on access to services that can be used to gain access to sites blocked in Russia. In other words, anonymizers and VPN-services, which are becoming increasingly popular, were banned. In addition, Roskomnadzor received the authority to block sites with information on how to bypass blocking. Also, search engine operators are obliged to block links to resources included in the agency's list. It is not yet known how Roskomnadzor will deal with VPN-services that refuse to comply with Russian law. It is possible that in order to limit the use of such services on mobile devices, the agency will act according to the "Chinese model" - by achieving the exclusion of relevant products from official application stores. As for the possibility of recognizing VPN traffic and blocking it, which is also used by a number of Chinese operators, its implementation requires the use of expensive equipment. Roskomnadzor representatives themselves are in no hurry to announce the action plan, referring to the need to get acquainted with the text of the law in detail and develop the law enforcement practice.