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Old 9 Jun 2021, 09:02 AM   #1
TenFour
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Fastmail blocked in Russia

From the Fastmail folks: https://fastmail.blog/legal-policy/r...ing-in-russia/
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Old 9 Jun 2021, 09:29 AM   #2
guest2k
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China ... next ?
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Old 9 Jun 2021, 11:13 AM   #3
Bamb0
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Is thier a way they can get around that??

Why block them?? They havent done anything
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Old 9 Jun 2021, 02:56 PM   #4
BritTim
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bamb0 View Post
Is thier a way they can get around that??

Why block them?? They havent done anything
Presumably, Russians can (at their own risk) sign up for Fastmail using a VPN and (at such time as Fastmail is blocked in Russia) attempt to circumvent the block using the VPN. Anyone doing this had better have a plan B.
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Old 9 Jun 2021, 07:18 PM   #5
Berenburger
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bamb0 View Post
Is thier a way they can get around that??

Why block them?? They havent done anything
I read it differently. They are not blocked by Russia (not yet at least). They themselves made the decision to block Russia.
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Old 9 Jun 2021, 08:23 PM   #6
FredOnline
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I've noticed in Twitter, that a few Russian users have questioned where it leaves them for the future.

Fastmail don't appear to have answered that yet?
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Old 9 Jun 2021, 08:38 PM   #7
TenFour
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And this morning from Fastmail on Twitter. Coincidence?

Quote:
Some customers are reporting problems reaching our servers. We believe these errors are caused by network failures between us and certain ISPs. If you are seeing problems, please reach out to support@fastmail.com and, if possible, provide a traceroute. https://fastmailstatus.com
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Old 9 Jun 2021, 09:09 PM   #8
verbovet
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BritTim View Post
Presumably, Russians can (at their own risk) sign up for Fastmail using a VPN and (at such time as Fastmail is blocked in Russia) attempt to circumvent the block using the VPN. Anyone doing this had better have a plan B.
If Fastmail will be blocked by Russia (now it is not blocked), vpn will help to send mails and use webmail, but it will not necessarly help to receive mails. For example, now Russia officially blocks ProtonMail, in reality almost everything works, but all messages from Proton are rejected by mail.ru.

So, this is a sad situation for Russian users of Fastmail.
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Old 10 Jun 2021, 02:00 AM   #9
Folio
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A quick search seemed to indicate that most of the big players (Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.) have servers in Russia in order to comply with the law. I assume the big companies can absorb the costs better than Fastmail can. Here's an old WSJ article (from 2015) about Google.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-...ers-1428680491
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Old 10 Jun 2021, 02:47 AM   #10
verbovet
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Folio View Post
A quick search seemed to indicate that most of the big players (Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.) have servers in Russia in order to comply with the law. I assume the big companies can absorb the costs better than Fastmail can. Here's an old WSJ article (from 2015) about Google.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-...ers-1428680491
In fact, I can't beleave in "they want our business to place a server physically within their country, register a local business entity"!

A law that require IT companies to register a local business entity is under discussion just now in the parlament, so it not exists yet, but the project of the law tells about companies with more than 500 000 users (daily). So even in the future, it will not be related to Fastmail.

Second, there is a law that requires to keep personal data physically within Russia. But this law applies to Russian companies including Russian branches of foreign companies. So, again, it doesn't apply to Fastmail.

Most likely, Fastmail was asked to be registered as an internet service. In fact, Russian law about personal data is very similar to German one, and Fastmail already had a problem with German law in 2017 https://fastmail.blog/legal-policy/f...germany-again/. The actions of Fastmail were the same as now: they blocked signups and remove mobile app, but later after lawyers expalined that what is needed is just a notification, the problem was resolved.

The Fastmail blog refer to "Roskomsvoboda" and I suspect this is who provided lawyers to Fastmail. If this is so, it is very bad, because Roskomsvoboda is a political group not interested in helping Fastmail and it's users, but in creating scandals.

Last edited by verbovet : 10 Jun 2021 at 04:33 AM.
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Old 10 Jun 2021, 09:53 AM   #11
verbovet
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I fount the court decision: https://mos-gorsud.ru/rs/taganskij/c...f-5b056f57a0a8 (in Russian).

There is no any single word about placing a server physically in Russia or registering a local business entity.

The court discusses only one request: to register as an information service, so my guess in the previous post was correct.
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Old 3 Jul 2021, 07:11 PM   #12
Bagnet
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I must say Fastmail doesn't come out well in this whole story
Thanks verbovet for clarifying the facts.
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Old 23 Jul 2021, 11:09 AM   #13
randian
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BritTim View Post
Presumably, Russians can (at their own risk) sign up for Fastmail using a VPN and (at such time as Fastmail is blocked in Russia) attempt to circumvent the block using the VPN. Anyone doing this had better have a plan B.
They're blocking VPNs too. NordVPN was mentioned in that blogpost.
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