THIRD SECTION CASE OF ENGELS v. RUSSIA (Application no. 61919/16) JUDGMENT Article 10 • Freedom to receive and impart information • Website owner compelled to remove information on filter-bypassing tools, which was arbitrarily banned by court, in order to avoid blocking of his entire website • Information technologies content-neutral • Sweeping measure solely based on the fact that the impugned material might enable malevolent access to extremist content on other unrelated websites • Interference with access to all content which might be accessed using the technologies in issue • Vague and overly broad legal provision not giving any indication as to nature or categories of content susceptible to be banned • Domestic law lacking foreseeability and safeguards against excessive and arbitrary effects of blocking measures • Notification and involvement of website owners in blocking proceedings not required by law • Participation of local Internet service provider not sufficient to endow proceedings with adversarial character • No prior assessment of impact and immediate enforcement of the blocking measure depriving interested parties of the opportunity to appeal • Domestic courts’ failure to perform a Convention-compliant review weighing up various interests at stake and to consider legitimate purposes of the impugned technologies Article 13 in conjunction with Article 10 • Effective remedy • Failure of courts to consider the substance of grievance or to examine lawfulness or proportionality of effects of blocking order STRASBOURG 23 June 2020 FINAL 16/11/2020 This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision.