Yarovaya law is significant burden for Russian telecommunication companies. Under this law they are obliged to keep a lot of information, including communication between their subscribers. There is the law – so called Yarovaya law, but there are no rules, implementing this law. The Russian companies are in very strange position – they have to comply with Yarovaya law, but they can’t do this – there are no rules, prescribing how to do it under the law.
Russian ministry of economy (MinEc) has drafted rules necessary for implementation of Yarovaya law, but other governmental body – Russian ministry of communication, (MinCom) – disliked the drafted rules. MinCom gave negative review on the drafted rules. According to MinCom these rules contradict to current Russian laws, they also contain impracticable and hardly implemented requirements for telecommunication facilities. The rules also entail significant transaction costs for their subjects, i.e. telecommunication companies.
Some rules are unreasonable, like requirement to keep information in two copies. It means the company has to have two complete set of facilities for execution of law, when the one set is enough. In order to execute the law the subject of regulation can use facilities it already has, without undue expenditures on inappropriate purposes. These rules also can cause some companies out of the Russian IT market, because little companies have to bear the costs on execution of Yarovaya law equally with major IT companies, like Yandex or Google.
Little companies don’t have such funds like major, therefore they can quit the market and outcome can negatively affect the competition on Russian telecommunication market. The complete review can be accessed here.