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cryptswahili · 5 years ago

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VPN Providers Defy Order to Connect to Russia’s Internet Censor

Russian regulators have once again moved to expand oversight of the online space in an attempt to ensure compliance with various restrictions Moscow is trying to impose. But as in other cases, their efforts have been met with resistance. Over a dozen VPN platforms, popular among crypto enthusiasts and other privacy-conscious users, have refused to join the state-run system for blocking banned websites. Some of them have already announced they are moving abroad. The game of cat and mouse continues, with Roskomnadzor vowing to block nine of the refusers within a month.

Also read: Russian Prosecutors Fail to Block Crypto Website

VPN Services Move Out of Country

In March this year, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media, Roskomnadzor, demanded from 10 VPN service providers to connect to the Federal State Information System (FSIS). The register keeps information about websites, the access to which has been restricted after they were blacklisted by Russian authorities. Roskomnadzor wants to confirm the VPN services do not allow their subscribers to access these sites.

The telecom watchdog sent out notices to Tor Guard, Vypr VPN, Open VPN, Nord VPN, VPN Unlimited, IP Vanish, Hide My Ass!, Hola VPN, Express VPN, and Kaspersky Secure Connection. Seven companies have refused to collaborate, including four that have moved their servers out of the country, and another two have not responded at all. Six more platforms, which have not been notified by the agency, also indicated they won’t connect to the FSIS. So far, only Kaspersky has agreed to cooperate.

Roskomnadzor

Alexander Zharov, head of Roskomnadzor, stated last week that nine VPN platforms which have not fulfilled the watchdog’s requirements, may be blocked within a month for not complying with the law that prohibits the provision of services facilitating the bypassing of government restrictions. “It seems Roskomnadzor has recently compiled a second list of VPNs and asked them to filter traffic,” Sarkis Darbinyan, lead legal expert at Roskomsvoboda, a Russian NGO fighting internet censorship, told news.Bitcoin.com.

Darbinyan also shared that another provider, Avast Secureline VPN, has just announced it’s withdrawing from the country in connection with Roskomnadzor’s actions. The company believes compliance with such requirements would violate its own principles and the right to freedom of the Internet. And because it won’t be in a position to bring any benefit to its Russian users, Avast informed them they will not be able to renew their subscriptions in the future.

The Battle for the Runet

A database maintained by Roskomsvoboda contains over 173,000 websites, forums, messengers, news outlets and other online platforms that have been banned at some point. The restrictions have been mandated by various state institutions including several government agencies, ministries and the Prosecutor’s Office. Many of them are still offline but some, like the crypto exchange aggregator Bestchange.ru, have been taken out of the blacklist.

Another encouraging example comes from the case with the blocking of a VPN service provider called Hidemy.name. The platform was taken offline by a ruling of a regional court in the Russian Mari El Republic in 2017. The owner of the website sought help from Roskomsvoboda and in May of this year, the organization’s legal team managed to successfully challenge the court’s decision.

Sarkis Darbinyan noted that Russian judicial authorities did not dig deep enough into how VPN technologies work and the lawyers were able to identify many procedural violations. This led to the cancellation of the original ruling and the unblocking of Hidemy.name by Roskomnadzor. However, “this battle is not over yet, so we will continue to fight for the rights of Russian users to VPNs and to protect companies that provide such secure and safe services,” Darbinyan commented.

Hidemy.name

According to amendments made to the Federal Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection” in late 2017, VPN providers and anonymizers are expected to register with Roskomnadzor and connect to the FSIS within 30 working days. One of their key obligations is to limit access to internet resources that are banned in the Russian Federation.

The same applies to search engines and the Russian internet companies Yandex, Sputnik, Mail.ru, and Rambler have already complied. Earlier this year, Google was sanctioned for failing to meet this requirement. Roskomnadzor now claims the internet giant has already paid the 500,000 ruble (approximately $8,000) fine imposed by a Russian court and is now filtering searches in accordance with the FSIS rules.

Roskomnadzor’s Next Move

If Russian regulators find that the law has been breached, they may adopt a decision to restrict access to the VPN providers who have violated its provisions. Roskomnadzor is now expected to take measures aimed at blocking the VPN services which have refused to comply with its requirements as well as those that have not replied to its notices. It remains unclear, however, what the watchdog’s next step will be.

Various approaches have been employed in the past regarding other non-compliant companies. For example, it took the watchdog almost a year to act against Telegram, the messenger founded by the Russian-born entrepreneur Pavel Durov, which enjoys great popularity in the crypto community. Other messaging platforms such as Blackberry, Imo and Line were banned much faster.

“It does not look like Roskomnadzor and Russian ISPs [Internet service providers] are really technically ready to block VPNs. For sure, they can block websites where users can download apps. That’s the easiest thing to do. But they absolutely cannot make Apple and Google remove a mobile app. Of course, the most difficult thing for them would be to actually block an application and break connectivity with the servers of these operators. And they understand it,” said Darbinyan. The activist added that this will become a huge problem for Russian regulators after the epic failure to block Telegram.

Government agencies are now trying to improve their blocking capabilities. “The Main Radio Frequency Center, an entity subordinated to Roskomnadzor, requested in March the development of an automated blocking system. It should be available by December 2019. The system will monitor how search engines, VPN services, proxy servers and anonymizers comply with the requirements of Federal Law № 276-ФЗ [the one that affects VPNs]. Maybe after supplying learning DPI [Deep Packet Inspection] tools to all ISPs to recognize VPN traffic by patterns, they will be more effective,” Roskomsvoboda’s representative pointed out. “It looks like it is going to be a long game of cat and mouse,” Sarkis Darbinyan said and elaborated:

Let me remind that most of the VPN services that have received notifications from Roskomnadzor already have a fairly rich experience in working in China and bypassing the Great Firewall. So they can easily adapt to work in Russia in these new circumstances.

The implementation of advanced technical means to control the Russian online space is part of package of measures introduced with the new “Digital Economy National Program” legislation, also known as the Runet law. It was adopted in April by the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, and according to its sponsors, its goal is to protect the Russian segment of the Internet from external threats turning it into a “sovereign” space. Critics say it will not only limit internet freedom but also affect negatively many businesses that rely on the World Wide Web, including crypto platforms.

As news.Bitcoin.com reported, some of the law’s key provisions include the building of a system that will channel Russian internet traffic through government-controlled routing points as well as granting unlimited powers to Roskomnadzor – the agency will be able to cut off non-complying internet providers at will. It’s been estimated that the system will draw more than 30 billion rubles (almost $500 million) from the state budget, an amount that has raised some eyebrows. But, financial costs and security concerns aside, the question many Russians are asking themselves is if the Runet will after all remain ‘Internet’.

Are you using a VPN service? What’s your opinion about Moscow’s requirements toward VPN providers? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Express yourself freely at Bitcoin.com’s user forums. We don’t censor on political grounds. Check forum.Bitcoin.com.

The post VPN Providers Defy Order to Connect to Russia’s Internet Censor appeared first on Bitcoin News.

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cryptobrief · 5 years ago

Link

Also read: Russian Prosecutors Fail to Block Crypto Website

VPN Services Move Out of Country

Roskomnadzor

The Battle for the Runet

Hidemy.name

Roskomnadzor’s Next Move

Are you using a VPN service? What’s your opinion about Moscow’s requirements toward VPN providers? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Express yourself freely at Bitcoin.com’s user forums. We don’t censor on political grounds. Check forum.Bitcoin.com.

The post VPN Providers Defy Order to Connect to Russia’s Internet Censor appeared first on Bitcoin News.

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hotspreadpage · 6 years ago

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Is PPC still an effective channel in an ICO marketing strategy?

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) are booming. In 2017, there was approximately $5.6 billion raised by over 900 ICOs. Almost half of these ICOs were deemed a success. In the first quarter of 2018, $6.3 billion was raised via an ICO. This figure includes the $1.7 billion raised in Telegram’s ICO. These numbers tell us that despite advertising bans and regulatory threats, ICOs are still a big business that is only getting bigger.

Naturally, ICO marketing has also become a growing industry. A large number of ICO marketing firms have sprung up which offer a wide range of ICO marketing strategies using conventional and non-conventional marketing channels. Successful ICO marketing takes a broad, multi-faceted approach. However, when it comes to paid marketing and advertising, any ICO marketing agency’s first two choices are Facebook and Google. Pay Per Click (PPC) was an integral part of ICO marketing campaigns in 2017 as they generated consistently strong ROIs – until January this year.

Advertising bans and PPC’s continued role in ICO marketing strategies

In January 2018, Facebook had over 2.2 billion active users when it announced a new advertising policy that banned ICO and cryptocurrency advertisements. Just two months later, LinkedIn and Twitter, with 500 million and 300 million users respectively, followed suit with bans on ICO advertising. At the same time, Google, with approximately 67% of the PPC market, announced that it was updating its ad policies to include not just ICO and cryptocurrency advertisements, but also all content related to these topics. Google stated that it took down over 3.2 billion ads in 2017, as they were found to be in violation of its policies.

With the updated ban coming into effect in June, there has been a massive change in the way ICO marketing budgets are being planned and spent. Previously, budgets included advertising on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Now, these advertising budgets are strictly focused on Google AdWords campaigns. No statistics are yet available on how much this refocus has boosted ICOs in general, but you can taste the frenzy in the air as marketers squeeze the last drops from what has proven to be one of the more effective ICO marketing tools. An estimated 40-60% of ICO marketing budgets are currently being spent on Google advertising, but come June, what’s next for PPC and ICO marketing strategies?

The increased role of crypto ad networks in PPC campaigns for ICOs

PPC campaigns for ICOs is by no means dead because of the Google ban, nor is it the end of the serious ICOs. If any good will come of this ban, it will be that some of the less serious and scam ICOs will be cleared away. One of the biggest winners from the ad bans will be the crypto-specific networks. Whilst crypto-centric ad networks offer fewer publishers compared to traditional ad-networks, they provide more targeted traffic at reasonably low prices. Some of the top crypto advertising networks are as follows:

Bitraffic.com – Launched in November 2017, Bitraffic has 2,700 sites in their network.

A-ADS.com – One of the first crypto networks, A-ADS.com claims to generate around 142 million ad impressions a day.

CoinAd.com – At the top end of prices, CoinAd.com only accepts publishers with an Alexa ranking below 100k and a minimum of 200k daily impressions.

Cointraffic.io – Established in 2014 and relatively small, Cointraffic.cio has only 400 publishers and provides good quality sites with targeted traffic.

Coinzilla.io – Launched in 2016, Coinzilla boasts 300 million monthly impressions.

A problem is emerging and will increase post-June, as every ICO will be fighting over the same banner space. Costs will increase and the top sites will continue to be booked for months in advance. While PPC should still form an essential part of any ICO marketing strategy, the rules have changed and, ICO marketing managers have to alter their way of thinking. The crypto ad networks do offer targeted traffic, however, it isn’t as targeted as Facebook and Google. Expectations will have to be adjusted, along with PPC’s part in ICO marketing plans.

In addition, it’s worth bearing in mind that due to the volume of publishers, PPC campaigns on crypto-centric networks aren’t going to get the same amount of impressions and clicks as campaigns run on a traditional ad network. Still, crypto-centric advertising networks should produce a positive ROI if carried out properly. It is important to make sure that the traffic is targeted. As there is an ever-growing choice of publishers and crypto ad networks, ICOs have the ability to run multiple small campaigns on a few different networks in order to compare the results.

The importance of SEO in ICO marketing strategies

It is important to note that while ads are being banned on traditional advertising networks, search engine results are not. This leads to a much more prominent role for SEO. As always, a well-researched and professionally implemented SEO strategy should form the bedrock of any ICO marketing package. SEO is the best long-term and cost-effective strategy for any ICO that is serious enough to think about post-ICO marketing. In addition to the above-mentioned strategies, there are also PR and media outreach, event sponsoring and attendance, and email marketing, all which provide effective marketing channels. There are also other free channels to utilize, including LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, Telegram, and Steemit, as well as Facebook pages and groups.

PPC: ICO marketing for the future

It isn’t just the ad bans that are making headlines in the world of ICO marketing, regulation is the hottest topic in the crypto world right now. The SEC has stepped up their battle against scam ICOs, which can only be a good thing for the ICO industry. However, what could cause a huge impact on most ICOs is whether or not coins will be classed as securities instead of currencies. A few governments have already banned ICO sales in their countries and regulatory authorities around the world are shining their spotlights brightly on ICOs and cryptocurrencies. In the meantime, ICOs will need to optimize every available marketing channel, including PPC.

Crypto-centric advertising networks will play an important role in ICO marketing strategies. The networks will most likely offer the same potential ROI as Google and Facebook, but they can also become a profitable method of ICO advertising. It’s best to start small and test out the different networks. Small campaigns spread across a few networks will allow you to compare results before you consider increasing the PPC budget for a particular network. For ICOs, there’s still gold in the PPC hills, you just have to dig a little deeper to find it.

For the time being, at least, the popularity of ICOs, as well as the rewards available to those launching them, show no signs of slowing down. The advertising bans mean that ICOs will need to look for other platforms that allow ICO advertising, including Telegram channels, crypto media websites, and crypto review sites. ICO marketing strategies will need to use more content-based marketing to compliment a strong SEO strategy. Articles and videos that share the ICO’s message in a newsworthy and editorial style will play an important part in ICO marketing strategies.

PPC will continue to be relevant in ICO marketing strategies. Smarter, out of the box thinking is required, and some good old-fashioned A/B testing of the networks and publishers that allow crypto and ICO advertising.

On Yavin is co-founder and CEO of Cointelligence.

Is PPC still an effective channel in an ICO marketing strategy? syndicated from https://hotspread.wordpress.com

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kellykperez · 6 years ago