The Internet now contributes to Russia's economy almost as much as Rosneft generates in tax revenue
In 2018, the Internet contributed 3.9 trillion rubles ($61.1 billion) to the Russian economy — an 11-percent jump from just a year earlier, according to statistics released by the Russian Association of Electronic Communications. E-commerce generated a large chunk of this income — about 1.95 trillion rubles ($30.5 billion). Marketing and advertising brought in another 263 billion rubles ($4.1 billion); Internet infrastructure, including domain, hosting, and cloud services, earned 106 billion rubles ($1.7 billion); and media and entertainment generated 75 billion rubles ($1.2 billion).
According to the website The Bell, the Internet's contribution to Russia's economy now almost matches the tax revenues generated by the state oil company Rosneft, which paid 4 trillion rubles ($62.6 billion) to the federal government last year, becoming the country’s biggest single taxpayer.
On April 16, Russia’s State Duma adopted the final draft of “Internet isolation” legislation. The Federation Council will review the law on April 22.
Russia’s Internet isolation law
According to lawmakers, this is a blueprint for what to do “in case of a rainy day.” If someone attacks the Russian segment of the Internet (if they threaten to restrict or disable Russia’s Internet access), Roskomnadzor will seize centralized control of Russia’s Internet. The federal agency will begin filtering all Internet traffic through special override systems that will be supplied to telecommunications providers free of charge. ISPs will have to obey Roskomnadzor’s direct instructions, observing the new traffic routing rules that effectively lock down Russia’s Internet from within.