LiveJournal Helps Russia Block Prominent Putin Critic

The US blogging company LiveJournal is showing an error message to users inside Russia who try to read the blog of Alexei Navalny, a prominent politician and critic of the Russian government.

Founded in 1999 by American Brad Fitzpatrick, who now works at Google, LiveJournal is currently owned by Rambler Co., a Russian company that runs several news websites. LiveJournal CEO Katya Akudovich said, “I can reassure you that Rambler & Co. has no influence on LiveJournal Inc. whatsoever. LiveJournal Inc. is an American company that complies with all the US laws. Our abuse team makes all of their decisions based strictly on our Terms of Service and the appropriate US laws.”