March 6, 2014 at 18:43Countering common sense. On the possible blocking of Yandex by decision of the Khabarovsk court
On December 10, 2013, the prosecutor filed a lawsuit in the Central District Court of Khabarovsk on countering extremism. On February 5, a court decision was made - Rostelecom is obliged to block access to several resources. Among them - Yandex and Kinopoisk. The decision should come into force on March 12 - if until that moment the interested persons or one of the participants in the case have not challenged it.
The court decision said that on the pages yandex.ru/video/search?text= and kinopoisk.ru/film/79500there are links to download the film "The Eternal Jew", which is recognized as extremist material and banned in Russia. However, links to download the movie were not placed on any of these pages and could not be placed. The page on Yandex search for Video is an empty search query for which there is not only a forbidden film, but nothing at all. The link to Kinopoisk provides only background information about the film, including the fact that in Russia it is included in the list of extremist materials. In addition, neither Yandex.Video, nor Kinopoisk are supposed to link to downloading content at all.
Since the court decision obliges Rostelecom to restrict access to yandex.ru/video/search?text=by IP address, then more than 9 million of its subscribers may be blocked by the entire Yandex search.
We learned about the decision of the Khabarovsk court only on March 4. By chance. Unfortunately, no one turned to us in the process of considering the claim - neither the court, nor the prosecutor's office. This is not the first time that a decision that clearly affects our interests and the interests of our users is made without us, but we learn about it from users whose services suddenly become unavailable to us. When we manage to participate in the process before making a decision, as a rule, we manage to explain how our services work and prevent blocking.
We sent a complaint to the Khabarovsk District Court and notified all interested parties about it - the court, the prosecutor’s office and Rostelecom. We look forward to reviewing the decision.
The court decision said that on the pages yandex.ru/video/search?text= and kinopoisk.ru/film/79500there are links to download the film "The Eternal Jew", which is recognized as extremist material and banned in Russia. However, links to download the movie were not placed on any of these pages and could not be placed. The page on Yandex search for Video is an empty search query for which there is not only a forbidden film, but nothing at all. The link to Kinopoisk provides only background information about the film, including the fact that in Russia it is included in the list of extremist materials. In addition, neither Yandex.Video, nor Kinopoisk are supposed to link to downloading content at all.
Since the court decision obliges Rostelecom to restrict access to yandex.ru/video/search?text=by IP address, then more than 9 million of its subscribers may be blocked by the entire Yandex search.
We learned about the decision of the Khabarovsk court only on March 4. By chance. Unfortunately, no one turned to us in the process of considering the claim - neither the court, nor the prosecutor's office. This is not the first time that a decision that clearly affects our interests and the interests of our users is made without us, but we learn about it from users whose services suddenly become unavailable to us. When we manage to participate in the process before making a decision, as a rule, we manage to explain how our services work and prevent blocking.
We sent a complaint to the Khabarovsk District Court and notified all interested parties about it - the court, the prosecutor’s office and Rostelecom. We look forward to reviewing the decision.