The Leninsky District Court of Saratov banned the Tor anonymous Internet access application. This is reported by the human rights project «Roskomsvoboda».
According to the court decision, the application must be included in the register of sites with prohibited information. Roskomsvoboda lawyer Yekaterina Abashina, who represented the interests of The Tor Project, Inc., said that the prosecutor’s office asked to involve Google as an “interested party” in order to present “separate demands” to it.
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“The court singled out the requirements for Google LLC to remove the application from the app store in a separate proceeding, but in the decision on the main case it still pointed out the illegal nature of the content of Google Play,” Abashina explains, pointing to the mistakes she believes the court made.
According to the lawyer, the court could not ban the application and technology based on the law on the prohibition of information.
The Saratov District Court for the first time recognized the link to download the anonymous Tor browser as “forbidden information” in 2017. In December 2021, Roskomnadzor blocked the page of the Tor project, where it was possible to download the browser. On May 31, 2022, Roskomnadzor demanded that Google remove the Tor Browser anonymous Internet access software from the Google Play market.
However, on May 19, 2022, the Saratov Regional Court overturned the decision of the Saratov District Court and sent a case to block the Tor website for a new review. In July, Roskomnadzor unblocked the project website.