OREANDA-NEWS. The State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted in the first reading a bill obliging foreign IT companies with a daily audience of more than 500 thousand users to open a branch, representative office or authorized legal entity in Russia. As reported on the website of the parliament on Tuesday, June 1, it is assumed that such branches «will be able to bear responsibility for violations of Russian legislation, interact with government agencies, and restrict the dissemination of information in the Russian Federation that violates Russian legislation».

The document also provides for a number of such «coercive measures», such as marking sites in search engines with «information about non-compliance with the law», exclusion from search engine results, a ban on advertising in Russia and on the placement of «advertising services aimed at Russians».

«The same measures are proposed to be applied for violating a number of old requirements, for which only fines and the possibility of blocking are currently established: for censorship on the Internet, non-removal of illegal content and non-compliance with the norm on the localization of personal data of Russians in the Russian Federation», the State Duma further reports.

According to the authors of the bill, it is intended to «ensure the protection of Russian users from possible destructive influence». Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Vyacheslav Volodin noted that «violators of the new requirements face sanctions — from slowing down the work to complete blocking». According to him, the bill was prepared following the January order of Russian President Vladimir Putin on additional requirements for foreign IT companies operating in Runet.