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Comment by hippich | Hacker News Reader

This is not just ecommerce site, but news outlet (alot related to latest technology news), classified ads, very large forum with a lot of members actively using it, and catalogue of various products (mostly about electronics). So e-commerce is just some part of it.

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You seem to know what you're talking about. I've read up a few sources in Russian, and all of them say there were breaches of law related to commerce and the company was warned, but none of the articles actually mentions the actual cause. One article (http://euroradio.fm/ru/sayt-onlinerby-isklyuchayut-iz-beloru...) mentions showing prices on the site. Was the site conducting ecommerce illegally, and are you not allowed to open up an ecommerce site without prior registration with the government? I certainly don't see anything about a 'new law' as the HN title suggests.

I don't believe onliner.by company was actually selling any of these products, instead they provided a platform for belarusian companies to show their prices, and make it possible to compare prices between companies.

This is very-very old project and I don't believe it had anything illegal going on.

My personal suspicions are that it is more political issue, rather than doing something illegal. Site was covering many news events, including showing off 'inefficiencies' of belarus government. I might be wrong tho.

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