Russia passes law to force websites onto Russian servers

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting of the Presidential Council on Inter-Ethnic Relations in the Kremlin July 3, 2014.REUTERS/Alexei Nikolskiy/RIA Novosti/Kremlin

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's parliament passed a law on Friday to force Internet sites that store the personal data of Russian citizens to do so inside the country, a move the Kremlin says is for data protection but which critics see an attack on social networks.

The law will mean that from 2016, all Internet companies will have to move Russian data onto servers based in Russia or face being blocked from the web. That would likely affect U.S.-based social networks such as Facebook, analysts say.