Rambler Found Guilty of Failing to Disclose Users' Email Addresses

A Moscow arbitration court has found Rambler, one of Russia's largest web portals, guilty of failing to disclose email addresses of users.  The court rejected Rambler's appeal of an earlier ruling that fined the company 500,000 rubles (over $15,000).  In July 2013 the Federal Financial Markets Service (FFMS) requested Rambler to provide information in connection with a probe into the Proyektnyye Investitsii company. The FFMS, and later the Bank of Russia, which had taken on its functions, was conducting an office audit of the company, which was being investigated for insider trading.  Rambler complied with all of the FFMS's requests and requirements with the exception of the request to supply email addresses of individuals linked to Proyektnyye Investitsii. Citing Paragraph 2 of Article 23 of the Russian Constitution (which provides that "[e]veryone shall have the right to privacy of correspondence, telephone communications, mail, cables and other communications. Any restriction of this right shall be allowed only under an order of a court of law"), Rambler claimed that compliance with the FFMS request would have required Rambler to violate the constitution by opening specific emails.

http://rbth.ru/news/2014/01/16/rambler_is_found_guilty_of_failure_to_disclose_users_correspondence_33263.html