On March 10, the State Duma will consider in the third final reading a bill on fines for the absence of pre-installed domestic software on equipment sold in Russia. The author of the initiative, deputy Sergei Zhigarev, told Izvestia about this. In the second reading, the bill was adopted on March 9. The very rule on the pre-installation of Russian software will take effect from April 1. There is a risk that some electronics models will disappear from store shelves, the industry says.
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We tightened the nuts
The draft law on fines is a companion of the main draft law obliging to sell electronics in Russia with domestic applications preinstalled on it. The document has already been adopted and will take effect on April 1. The bill on fines, as it is assumed in the State Duma, will come into force on July 1. According to the document, for officials the fine will be from 30 to 50 thousand rubles, for legal entities – from 50 to 200 thousand rubles. Rospotrebnadzor will consider cases of such violations.
By the second reading, an amendment appeared in the bill, according to which the norm will apply to applications developed on the territory of the EAEU countries, Sergei Zhigarev specified to Izvestia. According to him, penalties will apply to those companies “that will try to sell a product without pre-installed software, including retail chains.”
At the same time, the consumer will have the opportunity to remove Russian applications from devices that he does not need., added the deputy.
“As for the size of the fine, it is relatively small for a legal entity,” says Denis Kuskov, head of the analytical agency Telecom Daily.
Konstantin Ankilov, general director of TMT Consulting, agrees with him. Both experts believe that most companies have already prepared for the entry into force of the regulation.
“In part, the law can help Russian application developers compete with foreign companies such as Google,” said Konstantin Ankilov.
The Association “Domestic Software”, which unites developers of domestic software, did not comment on the discussion of the bill in the State Duma. Also, “Izvestia” did not respond to representatives of “Yandex” and Mail.ru Group.
Identified risks
Due to unclear wording in the bill, some models of devices may disappear from store shelves, fear in the Association of trading companies and manufacturers of electrical and computer equipment (RATEK, which includes Apple, Intel, Samsung, Sony, Philips, HP).
– Conscientious companies may not have time to prepare for the fulfillment of the requirements of the law and, accordingly, will not sell some devices, – explained Anton Guskov, PR Director of RATEK.
He added that the legal basis for interaction between device manufacturers and application developers is not yet fully understood. Now the parties are discussing these mechanisms, but the process is difficult and will take some time, Anton Guskov noted.
Earlier, the media wrote that the new bill will hit, in particular, Apple, and “apple” products may disappear from store shelves. Izvestia sent a request to the company and to the press service of Inventive Retail Group (manages re: Store stores).
The norm on the mandatory pre-installation of Russian software is enshrined in the law on consumer protection, which means that everyone should bear responsibility – the manufacturer, importer and seller, Anton Guskov believes.
– But the supervision will, of course, be checked by retail, that is, the fact of sale to the end consumer: the manufacturer’s offline or online store, which in this case will act as the seller. Therefore, sellers will bear responsibility before supervision, – added the representative of RATEK.
He recalled that earlier the association sent a letter to the government with a request to postpone for a year the introduction of liability for non-compliance with the mandatory software preinstallation requirements.
– We fear the lack of readiness of supervision in this matter. We have not yet received a response to our appeal, but the date for the entry into force of liability was nevertheless changed from April to July 1, – the representative of the association summed up.
The entry into force of the law will not lead to the disappearance of any devices from the shelves, believes in turn analyst at Mobile Research Group Eldar Murtazin. No manufacturer will go to the trouble of removing their devices from the shelves, he is sure.
At the stage of discussing the basic law on preinstallation of domestic software, the document added a “dialog box” option, when the consumer, when the purchased device is first turned on, receives a notification with a proposal to install either all applications from the attached list of presets, or some specific programs, the expert recalled. Large manufacturers like Apple will take advantage of this change, he said.
– The main point: that we do not create high-quality software that is different for the better from Western counterparts, which people would like to install. And by violent methods we oblige equipment manufacturers to install domestic software, – said the head of Telecom Daily Denis Kuskov.
In half of the cases, consumers will remove the pre-installed Russian software, the expert is sure.
M.Video-Eldorado told Izvestia that the overwhelming majority of manufacturers and suppliers of network equipment are preparing for the entry into force of new rules regarding the pre-installation of domestic software.
At the time of publication, the press service of Svyaznoy-Euroset did not respond to Izvestia’s request.