On February 16, experts of the Coordination Center for TLD RU took part in a situation analysis on the subject: “Identification of the Internet’s five main (systemic) problems, to be included in a report to the Russian President on the results of the work by Boris Titov, Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs' Rights." The analysis will provide the foundation for the Internet-related section of Titov’s annual report to the President.
Russia's Internet Ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev invited representatives of corporations and public companies to discuss the Internet’s systemic problems and draft recommendations on solutions. In part, they discussed urgent taxation issues, including VAT for domestic software and the so-called Mikhalkov tax on hardware importers.
The participants emphasized the urgent need for substantial reform of several basic Internet-related laws: “On Communications,” “On Information, IT and Information Protection,” and “On Personal Data.” They also discussed general issues of Internet legal regulation.
Coordination Center's Deputy Director on Legal Issues Sergei Kopylov suggested that regulation of the communications infrastructure that includes the Internet should be clearly separated from the regulation of online relations per se. “I believe that hardware producers and related services should in no way be affected by legislation regulating content, for instance, copyright protection,” he said.
Other speakers included Internet Ombudsman Marinichev, Presidential Advisor German Klimenko, Director for Strategic Projects of the Internet Development Institute Irina Levova, Director of the Internet Support Fund Mikhail Medrish, and others. The proposals made by the industry experts will be studied and result in specific goals. These tasks will be included in the related section of the report.
The section on Internet problems and proposed solutions was first included in the report to the President in 2015. At that time Internet experts were also invited to participate in the situation analysis whereby they revealed a number of serious problems and suggested ways of resolving them.
