Further to our earlier publications on the new law regulating foreign tech companies’ activities on the Russian internet (the Law), in this post we continue describing sanctions that may apply to foreign tech companies which fail to comply with the new regulations.
If a foreign tech company breaches the Law, the Russian personal data and tech regulator (Roskomnadzor) may prohibit (i) distribution of advertising of the foreign company or its resources in Russia; or/and (ii) publishing advertisements on the foreign company’s internet resources.
Under the Law, Roskomnadzor is permitted to make a decision to prohibit advertising of the foreign tech company and/or its internet resources in Russia. In this case, both the foreign tech company and all advertisement distributors will be prohibited from advertising the foreign tech company and/or its internet resources in any form and using any means.
Roskomnadzor may also prohibit the publication of advertisements on the foreign tech company’s internet resources. This would mean advertisers are prohibited from publishing any advertisement targeting a Russian audience on the foreign company’s resources.
Both sanctions are valid from the date when the information on the sanction being applied to a foreign tech company is included in the foreign tech companies’ register maintained by Roskomnadzor until this information is withdrawn from the register.
In order to enforce the above sanctions, the Russian Federal Law On Advertising was amended (in Russian). Under the amendments, the prohibitions on distributing advertisements for the foreign tech company and/or its internet resources and on publishing advertisements on the foreign tech company’s resources were included in the Federal Law On Advertising thereby making a breach of these restrictions subject to liability for breach of Russian advertising legislation.
Under the amendments to the Federal Law On Advertising, a new system for collecting data on advertisements distributed on the internet shall be implemented starting from 1 September 2022. Roskomnadzor will receive information on advertisements, advertisers, distributors of advertisements and operators of advertising systems, including foreign tech companies. A specific list of information will be drawn up by the Russian Government.
This amendment allows Russia to limit foreign tech companies’ involvement in the Russian market indirectly by limiting Russian companies’ right to use the relevant advertisement resources due to the risk of administrative penalties.
You may read more on this topic here:
- the new law on foreign tech companies’ activities;
- the methodology to be used by Russian authorities to determine foreign tech companies subject to the new law;
- implementation of the sanction banning payments to foreign companies; and
- implementation of sanctions informing users of foreign companies in breach of Russian laws and prohibiting search engines from displaying such foreign companies’ resources in search results
