Google confirmed today that it would move its engineering office out of Russia. That makes it at least the third major tech company to scale down its presence in the country this year. Although none of the three companies explicitly tied the decision to Russia's increasingly oppressive Internet policies, the decisions to leave can hardly be a coincidence. 

In April, President Vladimir Putin, who by all accounts isn't an Internet user, declared that the global computer network had "emerged as a special project of the U.S. CIA and that's how it's developing." A little more than two months later, the Russian parliament, always looking for  creative interpretations of Putin's messages, passed a law banning the storage of Russian citizens' personal data outside the country. All Internet companies were required to move the data to servers within Russia by September 2016. Although the Internet community protested -- obeying the letter of the law would deprive Russians of the opportunity to use Facebook or even buy plane tickets from foreign airlines through their websites -- legislators toughened the ban in September, bringing forward its implementation to January 2015.

Even as that change made its way through parliament, Adobe Systems, maker of Photoshop and other popular software,announced that it was closing its Russia office. Adobe gave an innocuous business justification: It was moving its applications to the cloud, where they would be available by subscription, as part of the global fight against piracy. It no longer needed a physical presence in Russia or in a few other countries, such as Taiwan and Turkey. Yet unofficially, company representatives said that Putin's increasingly tense relations with the West were keeping it from winning contracts in Russia, and that it wasn't prepared to move its servers to comply with the personal data law.

David Fuller's view

What a pathetic situation for Russia, and all because it is ruled by an insecure, dishonest and totally incompetent ex-KGB hack.  Imagine what Russia could have been today if it was run by Gary Kasparov or any of its other highly intelligent, internationally sophisticated and democratically inclined citizens.  

If Putin was not so dangerous, he would fit the profile for a remake of Stanley Kubrick’s Classic jet-black satire film Dr. Strangelove, released 50 years ago next month.  

The Russian Trading System Cash Index (RTSI$), quoted in US dollars, is cheap at 4.5 times earnings, until you consider that Governance Is Everything.  The Ruble is in freefall.