Maxim Ali has provided his comments on the removing of content from the internet

On 12 April the Russian Parliament, the Duma, passed a bill which made changes to the law on information and enforcement proceedings.  Court bailiffs have been granted the authority to issue orders requiring that data be deleted from the internet that is adverse to the dignity, character or business reputation of an individual or business.

The Head of the IP/IT Practice at Maxima Legal, Maxim Ali had previously ambiguously evaluated the initiative at its bill stage. Despite the fact that before being passed, the wording of the bill was amended, the provisions for when a bailiff can issue an order on blocking content according to Maxim are unchanged. “In any case, the consequences will be that controversial information will no longer be available to the general public. And this is the main problem – finding a balance between protecting something like business reputation, and the freedom of speech, which is in no way solved by the bill, providing a clear and unreasonable advantage to one of the parties of a dispute”, said Maxim to Advokatskaya Gazeta.

To read the full article (in Russia), please see the Advokatskaya Gazeta’s website.