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Russia’s Internet censor demands a break from Cloudflare after the American company enabled new privacy tools last month

Russia’s federal media regulator has urged Internet resource owners to stop using Cloudflare’s Content Delivery Network (CDN) service because the company recently enabled the default use of an extension on its servers that enhances clients’ privacy. 

“The use of Transport Layer Security Encrypted Client Hello (TLS ECH) violates Russian legislation and is restricted by technical threat countermeasures,” Roskomnadzor stated on Thursday. The agency called on Web-based resource owners to disable the extension “or, preferably, use a domestic CDN service.”

“We note that Cloudflare was among the Big Tech companies summoned by the U.S. State Department in September to discuss comprehensive and coordinated countermeasures against countries that actively protect their information sovereignty,” said the Russian agency. On Wednesday, Roskomnadzor began blocking websites that use ECH encryption.