Russia To Regulate Google and Facebook Since They Already Comply With NSA

Despite Russia’s “generous” stance on offering Edward Snowden asylum Russia has relatively strict internet censorship in place and is looking to use the NSA scandal to bolster this even further. In an interview with the New York Times two Russian MPs stated that:

“We need to quickly put these huge transnational companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook under national controls,” Ruslan Gattarov, a member of the upper chamber of the Russian Parliament, or Federation Council, said in an interview. “This is the lesson Snowden taught us.”

Russia is known for its strict internet censorship and there has been outrage at its recently passed “SOPA-style” legislation. Furthermore Russian internet companies are known to be strictly legislated hence why non-Russian internet giants like Google and Facebook have struggled to take off in Russia. This perhaps explains why Yandex is the number one Russian search engine and VKontakte is the number one social media site.

The Russian government had previously tried to regulate Google and Facebook in a similar way but they both refused to give the Russian government information citing it wasn’t fair or lawful. With the NSA revelations Russia is now going to press ahead with extracting such information citing Google and Facebook’s NSA/PRISM cooperation as legal justification. In future it will be tough for the USA and the U.S government to take the high ground when U.S companies refuse to collaborate with foreign governments.

Image courtesy of Digital Trends