> What you can do if you're affected
> - Talk to Roskomsvoboda: a digital rights advocacy organization.
I like when private companies tell their customers what politics they should engage in.
Well, if they can't provide a service or are having problems doing so for legal reason, it's only sensible to ask their customers to lobby for a better legal framework if they wish to receive that service. It's a problem (IMO) if what they ask for is unrelated to their business, but quite a few people would disagree with that, as well; especially if they fight for something they deem necessary.
Do you understand the absurd level of naïvete of this position?
Secondly, lobbying doesn't exist in countries with no political representation. The only political activity available in such countries are activism (not of the bureaucratic type) and sabotage, all severely punishable.
Yes, but they're not asking about it. They're just saying "we can't provide this service for this reason; if you want to use this, we need help with this law". I don't see anything unreasonable there. Of course, one could go the Google way and say "No service for you, no reason why, your questions will be ignored", but I think this is quite an unreasonable demand. It's not like someone is forced to lobby for you, they just say why and what to change.
> Secondly, lobbying doesn't exist in countries with no political representation. The only political activity available in such countries are activism (not of the bureaucratic type) and sabotage, all severely punishable.
Lobbying was meant in the farthest sense in my original comment. Still, I don't see why they should not name a reason and/or course of action despite this. "We can't service you, come cry with us in the corner" is really not something to put on your website.
It's reasonable to say this, but not reasonable to expect this to happen. Knowing this won't happen but still asking for this just paints you clueless.
> We can't service you
They can, they just decided not to.
I think they hope that this way they will not be blocked and thus the existing customers can keep connecting indefinitely.
They didn't tell you you should do it. Just that there aren't many other options.
I would imagine their lawyers recommended it. I too would be curious to see the legal memo, but I'm not surprised that a company would take this course, it does not seem unreasonable to me.
No, to minimize damage by calming down proverbial monkey with a grenade.
Webmail, imap & registration blocking is trivial to avoid. MX servers ending up in some blocklist might cause much more problems.
Oh well, that's what politics and power games are all about.
> There is Russian proverb that aptly describes such behavior: "назло маме отморожу уши" (cut off your nose to spite your face).
Curious to finally learn its origin, I had a Google - particularly as the phrase popped into mind this morning on my walk to work.
It Doesn't appear to be of Russian origin, per se. Certainly, It was something I heard a fair few times coming out of the mouths of Scottish family when I was younger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_the_nose_to_spite_...
For anyone thinking what is eats in Russian.