Russia not to tighten control over Internet - Shchegolev

MOSCOW, January 17 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia is not planning to tighten
control over the Internet, as China does it, Russian Minister of
Telecommunications and Mass Communications Igor Shchegolev said live on
the Echo Moskvy radio station on Sunday.
"Certainly we do not make any steps to this effect, this is our
position of principle. We are not going to introduce any restrictions in
this issue," Shchegolev said. Russia is just planning to make several
amendments in the legislation that regulate the activities in the
Internet, because the World Wide Web is "a quite new phenomenon," he noted.
"We will act gradually. We are working with the State Duma over a new
legal notion of Internet media," the minister pointed out. Thus, Internet
editions registered as media will be granted the benefits, which
traditional mass media have. "In the future we will work with concrete
media outlets without making hasty decisions, and we are not going to put
everything under control," Shchegolev remarked.
The minister noted several important events in the Russian segment of
the Internet in the previous year. He emphasized the success of the RF
domain zone despite all scandals triggered by the launched registration of
Cyrillic domains. "Since it was a pioneering project, we have some
problems on its development," the minister believes. He added that
according to the expert estimates less than one percent of Cyrillic domain
names were challenged. "This is a quite good indicator," Shchegolev
believes. The new domain zone performs one of its main functions, namely a
greater number of Russian-speaking Internet users. The growth of the
Russian adult Internet audience almost equalled with the growth of the
young Internet audience after the launch of the RF domain zone.
The minister also stressed positive results of launching a common
portal of public services. About 73,000 passports have already been
processed through the Internet not only in Moscow, but also in other
regions, he said. Among the Internet public services popular among
Russians the minister called the information about fines for violations of
the traffic rules and account statements from the Pension Fund.
The Russian authorities are also to create a special email service
between citizens and public servants. "A basic special email service was
developed and is being tested," the minister underlined.