Blocked Bitcoin Websites Fight Government Censorship in Russian Court
Bitcoin websites blacklisted by the Russian government brought their case before a judge today in an attempt to overturn a decision that has restricted domestic access to their domains. Members of bitcoin news website BTCsec.com and exhibition company Smile Expo were reportedly in attendance at the hearing. The Russian government has filed a petition to dismiss a complaint submitted by the websites, two of six that are currently being blocked by the government. Smile Expo argued that its website was used for the dissemination of information about its conferences, not cryptocurrency....
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A regional Russian court has overturned a decision today that restricted seven bitcoin websites from public access in January. Russian-language bitcoin news blog BTCsec reported that a city court in Nevyansk had acted improperly by blocking the websites. As a result of the decision, educational and commercial websites including Bitcoin.org, Coinspot.ru and Indacoin.com will now be publicly accessible once again. Representatives of certain affected websites had previously argued that there are no current laws that prohibit the release of information related to bitcoin or digital currency.....
In contrast to some nations that have expressed openness for cryptocurrencies and have been home to several bitcoin websites, Russia has taken a hard-line defensive stance against this technological development. Just last year, the government decided to ban bitcoin activity and blocked access to several websites containing information about the cryptocurrency. In its announcement, the government specified that the only currency in Russia is the ruble and that those who participate in transactions using other currencies could face penalties. However, a recent court ruling may be able to....
[Update: The number of blocked sites now totals seven. One of these sites is reported to be bitcoinconf.ru] The Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications (Roskomnadzor in Russian) has blacklisted five Bitcoin-related websites. Roskomnadzor has effectively blocked access to Bitcoin.org – an online community of cryptocurrency users and specialists supported by the Bitcoin Foundation - entering it into a registry of prohibited websites despite the site not having any user-submitted content. “Given the remoteness of the [the Ural, Sverdlovsk region] region and....