02 Aug 2010

About the Right to “Connect”

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Title: Internet again victim of the state’s Regulation ideology
Life in Belarus does not seem to be getting easier. Legislators don’t like to be lazy and every now and then produce something eyebrow-raising.
By now there is no doubt that “Regulation” has become the state ideology of Belarus, but what we did not know before is how far it can go. For example, who could know that Belarusian law-makers would go through with the project of the Internet regulation! At the same time, the Code of Education is being announced to be almost ready for more than 4 years by now, but the work is still in progress. Apparently, regulating the Internet is a much bigger priority, especially given the upcoming political events in the country and the fact that the Internet is probably one of the last platforms for open discussion in the country. Therefore, it needs regulation! Or so they think.
Below are some new rules for those who want to be active online.
From July 1st, 2010, people who access the Internet from Internet-cafes and other public Internet access spots have to be identified by their passports or other ID types. To access the Internet with their own laptops via wifi networks users have to buy special cards, which can be bought upon submission of passport data. Information about the sites they visited will be stored in special journals for a year and will be accessible to law-enforcement and justice institutions like police, KGB, courts, etc.
All registered legal entities and natural persons with online sites that are hosted abroad, are obliged to move their web-pages to Belarus to local hosting companies.
Individuals can skip registration, but they will not be able to locate their web-pages on the servers inside Belarus without it. Registration of individuals’ web-pages which are located on the servers of “Beltelekom” will be realized by Internet services providers.
Web-pages that are hosted by free-of-charge servers also have to be officially registered. The same goes for sub-domain pages (like logbook.generation.by, for example).
People running unregistered web-pages will not be able to administer any types of business via these web-pages, including publishing advertisement materials.
Submission of false data during the registration of online resources will be punished with measures which have not yet even been named in the law. Everyone is full of suspense to find out!
And that’s not all! The law is being constantly developed. New clauses will regulate blocking access to some web-pages that will contain “information legally banned for distribution” (and you can imagine how widely this phrase can be interpreted given the specifics of Belarusian political environment). It is known already that access to such web-pages will be blocked in all state institutions, including educational institutions. Private users may request banning access to such web-pages by their Internet providers.
Now, 1 month after the law was reinforced, around 15 000 online resources (according to some estimates it is less than a half of active web-sites in Belarus) have been registered. It was announced that Belarusian hosting companies will not get the right to own servers outside of Belarus. As a result one can observe mass immigration of Belarusian web-sites abroad. Those are online resources which are administered by individuals of course, because they still have the right to do so.
It must be mentioned though that dozens of Belarusian NGOs and online newspapers do not have official registration, so their online resources in this story are considered as the ones owned by individuals. They are not interested in storing all their data in the center of Miensk with the state’s hand on the switcher. Another disadvantage is that the technical level of Belarusian data centers is rather low and is not able to manage the crowd of all the Belarusian Internet in one place.
I find it best to finish this post with a quote from the book “Paranoia” by a modern Belarusian author, Victor Martinovich: “Peculiarity of our age is in the fact that one can write anti-utopias based on reality. One does not have to create a fictional “1984” any more. It is enough to look around.”

Life in Belarus does not seem to be getting easier. Legislators don’t like to be lazy and every now and then produce something eyebrow-raising.

By now there is no doubt that “Regulation” has become the state ideology of Belarus, but what we did not know before is how far it can go. For example, who could know that Belarusian law-makers would go through with the project of the Internet regulation! At the same time, the Code of Education is being announced to be almost ready for more than 4 years by now, but the work is still in progress. Apparently, regulating the Internet is a much bigger priority, especially given the upcoming political events in the country and the fact that the Internet is probably one of the last platforms for open discussion in the country. Therefore, it needs regulation! Or so they think.

Below are some new rules for those who want to be active online.

From July 1st, 2010, people who access the Internet from Internet-cafes and other public Internet access spots have to be identified by their passports or other ID types. To access the Internet with their own laptops via wifi networks users have to buy special cards, which can be bought upon submission of passport data. Information about the sites they visited will be stored in special journals for a year and will be accessible to law-enforcement and justice institutions like police, KGB, courts, etc.

All registered legal entities and natural persons with online sites that are hosted abroad, are obliged to move their web-pages to Belarus to local hosting companies.

Individuals can skip registration, but they will not be able to locate their web-pages on the servers inside Belarus without it. Registration of individuals’ web-pages which are located on the servers of “Beltelekom” will be realized by Internet services providers.

Web-pages that are hosted by free-of-charge servers also have to be officially registered. The same goes for sub-domain pages (like logbook.generation.by, for example).

People running unregistered web-pages will not be able to administer any types of business via these web-pages, including publishing advertisement materials.

Submission of false data during the registration of online resources will be punished with measures which have not yet even been named in the law. Everyone is full of suspense to find out!

And that’s not all! The law is being constantly developed. New clauses will regulate blocking access to some web-pages that will contain “information legally banned for distribution” (and you can imagine how widely this phrase can be interpreted given the specifics of Belarusian political environment). It is known already that access to such web-pages will be blocked in all state institutions, including educational institutions. Private users may request banning access to such web-pages by their Internet providers.

Now, 1 month after the law was reinforced, around 15 000 online resources (according to some estimates it is less than a half of active web-sites in Belarus) have been registered. It was announced that Belarusian hosting companies will not get the right to own servers outside of Belarus. As a result one can observe mass immigration of Belarusian web-sites abroad. Those are online resources which are administered by individuals of course, because they still have the right to do so.

It must be mentioned though that dozens of Belarusian NGOs and online newspapers do not have official registration, so their online resources in this story are considered as the ones owned by individuals. They are not interested in storing all their data in the center of Miensk with the state’s hand on the switcher. Another disadvantage is that the technical level of Belarusian data centers is rather low and is not able to manage the crowd of all the Belarusian Internet in one place.

I find it best to finish this post with a quote from the book “Paranoia” by a modern Belarusian author, Victor Martinovich:

Peculiarity of our age is in the fact that one can write anti-utopias based on reality. One does not have to create a fictional “1984” any more. It is enough to look around.

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