As this take on the familiar saying goes - On internet... Mother Russia stores you. The Russian State Duma (parliament) has passed the first bill required to ensure that any online personal data relating to Russian citizens be stored within the country.

TechCrunch points out that the effects of the bill, if fully passed, would be wide-ranging, touching just about every international service used by Russians. Essentially, it would mean that Facebook, Google or any other international online service – including apps – used by people in Russia would need to have physical servers inside Russia’s borders.

The bill also proposes amendments to laws covering personal information and data protection.

A rough Google translate version of the key part of the bill says:

“When collecting personal data, including through information and the internet telecommunications network, the operator is required to provide a record that the systematization, accumulation, storage, updating and retrieval of personal data of citizens of the Russian Federation, is held on databases located in the territory of the Russian Federation.”

TechCrunch did attempt to contact Google and Facebook for comment, to which Google responded that they have "no comment" - Facebook did not respond. Perhaps they will simply conduct another social experiment, flooding our News Feeds with Russian before they respond...