Policy towards Russian Users

If you’re a provider: are you keeping Russian users on your service? Got this email yesterday:

Taking into account the current situation, are there plans to terminate
the xxx service for clients from Russia at the moment? I would
like to plan ahead the changes to my backup scheme if it was so.

My reply was that Russians who use my service are generally not Putin supporters, so there are no plans to block anyone now or in the future. Others may feel differently.

We allow Russians, no reason not to. Citizens deserve the right to access and publish information in a private manner.

Not in the hosting space, but my company’s policy is not to do any business with any Russian State-Owned Enterprises.

We use the OECD’s definition, namely:

  • Enterprises where the state has significant control, through full, majority, or significant minority ownership.
  • Direct and indirect ownership at any level of government, at least 10%.

This has been policy since early 2021.

We still do business with all forms of privately owned enterprises (including politically nonconnected individuals) & do not plan on changing policy as long as it’s legal to do so.

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If sanctions require me to drop a user I will. I have removed users from Iran. It’s never personal, but I never let one user risk every other customer. Getting caught violating sanctions definitely risks everyone’s data and it’s my job to make sure that risks are mitigated. Otherwise, I don’t consider country of origin to be relevant unless paired with another detail that makes it relevant.