Google, YouTube to Get Russian Site Blacklist Updates

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) – Google and YouTube will receive updates regarding information banned within Russia, the country's communications oversight agency said.

The agency’s press release confirmed that Google Inc and YouTube LLC had formally agreed “to receive information from the register regarding content banned in Russia.”

The register detailing ‘blacklisted’ sites and content that is banned in Russia was launched by the agency on Thursday. The zapret-info.gov.ru site will consider complaints lodged by members of the public, who can submit screenshots and URLs of the offending sites.

Cooperation between the agency and international companies had already been sketched out before the law came into force. “The company’s email address is included in the mail-out regarding links added to the register,” the press release said.

In the first 24 hours of its existence, the site logged over 5,000 complaints regarding offensive content, 96 percent of which were rejected after consideration.

Of the initial complaints, 10 sites were kept on the list as they contained child pornography, 40 complaints were passed to the drugs control authorities, and 23 to the consumer affairs watchdog.