Russia hikes fines for ISPs that fail to block gambling domains

Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved new penalties for internet service providers (ISPs) who fail to block unauthorized online gambling domains.

On February 10, Russia’s Duma adopted Bill 1102471-6, which amends the Russian Federation Code of Administrative Offences. The amendments hike fines for ISPs who fail to block domains that have been flagged by the country’s telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor. On Wednesday, Putin signed the bill into law.

While the new fines are generally twice the size of the original penalties, they remain relatively miniscule. Individual ISP officials face fines of RUB 5k (US $86), while companies can be dinged for up to RUB 100k ($1,722).

However, keep in mind that Roskomnadzor is one ban-happy agency, having identified nearly 87k offending domains in 2016, a 75% increase from 2015’s total. Many of these sites offered porn or undesirable political opinions, but gambling sites accounted for 15,900 of the banned domains. The agency’s ban-hammer has been even busier so far this year, including over 1,400 gambling domains in just the span of February 15-21.