On December 1, 2021, Roskomnadzor (The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media), based on the decision of the Oktyabrsky District Court of Tambov, blocked access to Etsy.com in Russia.
The judgment was made back in 2019. At the suit of the local prosecutor, the court found that information prohibited in Russia was being distributed on one of the Etsy pages. It was about the results page of the query “gucci replica”: in the search results, there were products from dozens of sellers offering authentic Gucci brand clothing and accessories. The court found that there was no information on the agreements with the copyright holders on Etsy and the products were, in fact, counterfeit.
Roskomnadzor noted that after the court’s decision, eight notifications were sent to the owner of the resource about the need to delete prohibited information.
Roskomnadzor denies that they blocked Etsy by mistake: “Most modern sites work through the HTTPS protocol and encrypt their traffic, including the Etsy portal. The network packet inspection technology – DPI, which was successfully used by large providers for point blocking a few years ago, does not work for them. What remains is blocking by IP, under which the entire site falls”. The Service clarifies that the basis for lifting the block can only be the removal of prohibited information.
On December 3, Roskomnadzor removed the block from Etsy after the prohibited information was removed.