VLADIMIR KHARITONOV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT Consequently, the law must afford a measure of legal protection against arbitrary interferences by public authorities with the rights safeguarded by the Convention, and indicate with sufficient clarity the scope of any discretion conferred on the competent authorities and the manner of its exercise (see Hasan and Chaush v. Bulgaria [GC], no. 30985/96, § 84, ECHR 2000-XI; and Ahmet Yıldırım, cited above, §§ 57 and 59). 38. In the instant case, the statutory basis for the interference was section 15.1 of the Information Act. That provision defines the categories of illegal web content susceptible to be blocked and lays down a step-by-step procedure for putting a blocking order in place. The Russian authorities relied on that provision to block access to an online collection of cannabis-themed stories known as “The Rastaman Tales”. The Court notes with concern that section 15.1 allows the authorities to target an entire website without distinguishing between the legal and illegal content it may contain. Reiterating that the wholesale blocking of access to an entire website is an extreme measure which has been compared to banning a newspaper or television station, the Court considers that a legal provision giving an executive agency so broad a discretion carries a risk of content being blocked arbitrarily and excessively (see paragraphs 15 and 16 above). 39. The fact remains, however, that while the offending website featured at least some arguably illegal content, the applicant’s website did not have any content falling within the scope of section 15.1 (compare Ahmet Yıldırım, cited above, § 60). The applicant was in no way affiliated with the owners of the offending website or responsible for the allegedly illegal content. The interference in issue could not therefore have been grounded on the provision that was supposed to have formed its legal basis. 40. As it happened, the blocking of the applicant’s website was an automatic consequence of Roskomnadzor’s decision to add the IP address of the offending website to the register of blocked material. That decision had the immediate effect of blocking access to the entire cluster of websites hosted by DreamHost which shared an IP address with the offending website. It was issued in compliance with subsection 9 of section 15.1, which allowed Roskomnadzor to enter the IP address of the offending website in the Integrated Register of blocked content. However, the Court’s scrutiny of the lawfulness requirement is not limited to establishing whether the State agency acted in accordance with the letter of domestic law. The Court must also ascertain whether the quality of the law in question enabled the applicant to regulate his conduct and protected him against arbitrary interference. 41. Section 15.1 of the Information Act conferred extensive powers on Roskomnadzor in the implementation of a blocking order issued in relation to a specific website. Roskomnadzor can place a website on the Integrated Register of blocked content, ask the website owner and its hosting service provider to take down the illegal content, and add the website’s IP address 12