The Federal Law aims to regulate the procedure for formalising the official presence of foreign legal entities, foreign organisations that are not legal entities, foreign citizens and stateless persons engaged in information technology activities in the Russian Federation that influence the interests of Russian citizens, and to establish equal conditions for such activities for Russian and foreign persons.
The Federal Law states that the owner of an information resource, the daily audience of which exceeds 500,000 Russian users, in order to carry out activities in the territory of the Russian Federation must create a branch, open a representative office or establish a Russian legal entity that fully represents the interests of the parent company and is the main channel for its interaction with Russian regulators in the Russian Federation.
These requirements also apply to hosting providers, operators of advertising systems and organisers of information distribution via the Internet telecommunications network.
The Federal Law establishes a number of measures to compel foreign persons operating on the internet in the territory of the Russian Federation to comply with the requirements of the Russian Federation legislation, up to the complete restriction of access to the information resource of a foreign person.