April 22, 2009 By James Kimer

In Russia, the Internet is a “Strategic” Sector

internet.gifWe’ve written before on this blog about the Russian government’s declaration of “strategic sectors” in the economy, which is another way of saying that they are open game for state intervention, and foreign participation will be limited.  There are certain areas where this is logical – such as sensitive defense technologies.  There are other areas which make much less sense, such as energy, media, and internet.  The strategic sectors legislation has very little to do with the logic of reciprocity – Gazprom has snapped up assets across Europe, but foreigners aren’t allowed controlling stakes in energy projects.  Even Alexander Lebedev has a newspaper in the UK, but no foreign company can get involved in disturbing the Kremlin’s carefully managed flow of information to its citizens (how else can they guarantee that ridiculous propaganda documentaries would be shown to whip up anti-Americanism?).