Russian authorities want to track consumption of content and advertisements in internet

They want exactly know what the people like, what they consume and how internet platforms can influence them. The task is not so simple, but this idea has been discussed with major media and IT companies. The executives from Russian president’s administration and relevant officers discuss idea to create the single and unified system able to truck each view of content or advertising by the internet user in Russia. The major Russian television and internet companies have been involved in these discussions, but there is no final idea how such tracking would be organized and deployed.

There is also no single opinion concerning the data which system should collect and handle. It could be made by analogy with already existing systems like system measuring television audience or system tracking the sale of cinema tickets. The information from television measuring services is already controlled and collected by subsidiary of Russian state organisation. The Russian authorities also want to control information on interests of Russian internet audience. There could be a problem with tracking of advertisement. Whether foreign ad companies would like to share valuable information with state authorities?

Internet companies, regardless of place of residence, don’t like to share information or data concerning users in order for the purposes of ad targeting. Some internet companies use their own and unique systems in order to create and collect data necessary for operation of advertising and other services. They would not like to reveal commercially valuable information and decrease their own companies’ value, they also don’t want to provide third persons with any, even restricted, access to such information, because it can include personal data.

But Russian authorities don’t want to collect data from different sources and analyze it in complex. They want to receive complete and parsed data for free and also they don’t want to bear any liability for creating and handling such data. They want receive “final answer” without any work. It is stated that the main purpose of such internet tracking system is tracking of Russian professional video content, in order to protect the interests and rights of Russian right holders. But the conception supposes mandatory installation of tracking code on each web-site, making money on advertising and video content.