Following a complaint from a Yekaterinburg lawyer, Russia\u2019s federal censorship agency, Roskomnadzor (RKN), has sent a letter to Google asking the company to halt technical support for the website of Alexey Navalny\u2019s \u201cSmart Vote\u201d initiative.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As reported by Kommersant, this was confirmed by RKN\u2019s official response to the complaint, which the lawyer, Andrey Yelantsev, posted on Facebook.<\/p>\n
In the post, Yelantsev \u2014 who heads the Reputatsiya Law Center \u2014 explained that he appealed to Roskomnadzor because according to the domain lookup tool WHOIS, \u201cSmart Vote\u201d uses servers located in the United States. According to the lawyer, the initiative\u2019s users aren\u2019t warned that their data is being processed in a \u201cstate unfriendly to Russia.\u201d According to the \u201cSmart Vote\u201d website, the platform doesn\u2019t collect data about users\u2019 places of residence.<\/p>\n
Roskomnadzor followed up on the complaint with Google, because the tech giant owns the domain appspot.com, where the \u201cSmart Vote\u201d website is located. In its letter, RKN asked Google \u201cto assist in taking measures to prevent the illegal processing of the personal data of Russian citizens by terminating technical support for the site.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Facebook, Navalny\u2019s chief of staff, Leonid Volkov, wrote that Roskomnadzor is \u201cblackmailing\u201d Google because the censorship agency has failed to block the \u201cSmart Vote\u201d website for three years now. \u201cIf anything, Roskomnadzor has been asking Google for something similar every three months throughout all these years,\u201d Volkov said.<\/p>\n
Shortly after \u201cSmart Vote\u201d launched on the domain 2019.vote in 2018, Roskomnadzor began blocking its website in Russia on the grounds that it violated regulations on personal data storage. The \u201cSmart Vote\u201d website was then moved to a new address on the domain appspot.com and continued operating. Roskomnadzor made no attempt to block the site after that.<\/p>\n
Team Navalny used its \u201cSmart Vote\u201d strategy during various election campaigns in 2019 and 2020, including during the city duma elections in Moscow, Tomsk, and Novosibirsk.<\/p>\n
In April 2021,\u00a0a\u00a0database\u00a0with the email addresses of Navalny supporters who had registered with the website free.navalny.com was made publicly available. Team Navalny\u00a0confirmed\u00a0the authenticity of the database and apologized for the leak. On May 31, Navalny\u2019s associates\u00a0announced\u00a0that the St. Petersburg activist Fedor Gorozhanko, who worked for the FBK from 2016 to 2019, was involved in the data leak. Gorozhanko\u00a0denies\u00a0the allegations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No, this is not the end Sociologist Konstantin Gaaze says the Kremlin\u2019s crackdown on political competitors has mythologized Alexey Navalny\u2018Intimidation and robbery\u2019 Police launch nationwide raids against Alexey Navalny's regional offices, days after \u2018Smart Vote\u2019 potentially shifts election results in MoscowUnpleasant emails Team Navalny apologizes after database of email addresses registered for planned protest leaks online<\/p>\n