State against classifiers

“Are you representing the Netherlands here? All the guys, close your suitcases and go to your place”

“Regulate -> Devalue -> Pass it on to the right people”. The state has chosen such a tactic in relation to large classifications. The largest, of course, is Avito, but others will also get it – CYANU and Yulia, for example.

First Gorelkin inventedthat it is necessary to expel all foreigners from the capital of companies (for example, CIAN will suffer). And to take away their personal data – for this, the services will be forced to install a state counter that collects user data. Let me remind you that the law on the counter (I wrote on FB about it) directly allows you to “create government services” based on such data. Law accepted first reading July 5th.

But this seemed not enough – on Friday they urgently brought in and already accepted quite radical in the first reading law. It will allow digital ads to be published ONLY through the new “government ad operator”. This puts an end to the business of Avito, Yula and others. The reason is to protect the security of the country. She suffers because it is possible to post harmful information. The motivation for the law in the explanatory note is just that.

The author of the law, United Russia Kiryanov, four times asked about examples of such harmful ads. He did not name a single one, but said that “it is necessary to act preventively.” In addition, check out the comment of the author of the law – “it is not known where the data of Russians is processed, but I am sure that they (the data) cross the border. It is not known “what from the analysis of big data will be … the property of unfriendly states.”

This is despite the fact that all Avito’s data is stored in Russia, and several laws adopted by his own party ALREADY prohibit transferring data abroad. And Gorelkin’s law already forced classifiers to be responsible for the content. It is obvious that the author simply does not know what he was going to regulate.

It looks completely wild. The law was passed with incredible speed. It was submitted to the Duma three hours before the meeting, no one saw the text. This did not prevent the majority from voting “Yes”. Speaker of the Duma Volodin emotionally betrayed, referring to Avito:

Are you representing the Netherlands here? All the guys, close your suitcases and go to your place.”

The funny thing here is that the law, according to the description of this single operator, is “sharpened” for one company, which will be given to steer the ads. This is the Dutch (!) company Russ Outdoor, in which one of the United Russia deputies officially owns a stake.

Since March, Avito has been trying to stay in Russia and keep the business going. Transferred the company to local management. They were looking for a buyer. But now their business with the new laws will be depreciated many times over. Everything that the Dutch holding built here costs almost nothing now.

These are absolutely sabotaging laws. There is absolutely no reason for such a rush, they do not protect either citizens or security. But they will definitely chop up a giant successful technology business – with all the taxes and jobs that it had.

What is even worse is a powerful signal to investors and founders. What, do you want to invest in projects in Russia? Well, look how you can destroy their value and value in just a couple of months.