Russian watchdog, protecting consumers’ rights and interests, proposed to make a list of online stores, which can operate in Russia. Such list would be some kind of registry, containing the web-sites having the rights to operate in Russia. New proposal concerns not only Russian online stores, but also foreign.
It seems the main goal of such proposed measure, if it would implemented, is notifying the overseas online stores, if their services or goods can be bought in Russia, of new rule, despite the fact that such stores don’t consider the Russia as their territory of sales market. Such registry can appear till 2019. But what can happen with those, who avoided such registration or did not know about it, was not communicated. Perhaps such web-sites will be blocked in Russia.
Why Russian governmental authority decided to propose such measure? The reason is very simple – control over everything (taxes, distribution of goods and services or information). If you do something wrong you are out of Russian internet. How it is proposed to implement? Also very “simple”. When online store applies for registration in Russian Federal Taxation Service it would also obliged to state its address of web-site (domain name). Such measure, as intended, should set Russian internet free from “shadow commerce”. Each stated domain or web address will be bound with certain legal entity; therefore any complaint from customers will be referred to the owner of online store.
But it is not all. Russian legal entities and individual entrepreneurs can be obliged to register addresses of their web-sites (domain names), through which they provide services or sell goods, when they apply for registration of individual entrepreneur or incorporation of legal entity. Along with web-address applicants would provide also emails of online store for registration. Registered email is necessary for official communication with supervising authorities.