Russian communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has restricted
another six VPN providers. The agency says the platforms have
facilitated access to information that is banned in the Russian
Federation. Roskomnadzor is also whitelisting certain VPN services that
operate in accordance with the law and are used by Russian companies.
Roskomnadzor Bans More VPN Platforms in Russia
Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications,
Information Technology, and Mass Media, Roskomnadzor, has restricted
access to another batch of VPN service providers. In accordance with a
government decree issued in February 2020, “a decision was made to block
6 more VPN services that violate Russian law,” the watchdog explained
in a notice published Friday.
The affected platforms are Hola! VPN, Express VPN, Keepsolid VPN
Unlimited, Nord VPN, Speedify VPN, and IPvanish VPN. The regulator
insisted their services allow users to maintain “access to prohibited
information and resources,” creating conditions for illegal activities
such as those related to the distribution of drugs and spreading of
extremism.
Earlier this year, Roskomnadzor banned two other VPN providers,
Vyprvpn and Operavpn, citing identical reasons. The federal supervisory
body described as “effective and justified” the technical means it’s
using against services helping Russians to bypass its restrictions.
Such measures are often applied to websites with crypto-related content. Last August, Roskomnadzor took down the popular exchange aggregator Bestchange.ru and in March 2020, the agency added six crypto sites to its register of banned internet sources. This past June, a court in the Perm region announced its decision to block several websites providing information on cryptocurrency trading.
Watchdog Whitelists Some VPNs Used by Russian Businesses
In its latest announcement, however, Roskomnadzor also revealed it’s
now whitelisting certain VPN services. The move aims to avoid disrupting
the operations of software programs and applications that are not in
breach of the current Russian legislation and “use VPN services for
technological purposes.”
The decision to do that comes after the agency received requests from
64 industry organizations, 27 of which are using VPN connections to
support 33 technological processes. Roskomnadzor has been presented with
more than 100 IP addresses that need to be exempted from its access
restriction policies.
The regulator further emphasized that while the VPN services
violating the law in the Russian Federation have been blocked
completely, the VPNs used by Russian companies that were added to its
whitelist have continued to function smoothly.
source link : https://news.bitcoin.com/russias-roskomnadzor-watchdog-blocks-6-vpn-providers/
