MOSCOW, April 15 (RAPSI) – The State Duma Committee on Information Policy has recommended that the lower house adopt in the first reading a bill that would equate news aggregators with other media, RIA Novosti reported on Friday.

The bill was submitted to the State Duma by a group of lawmakers in February.

According to the initiative, news aggregators such as Yandex will have to check the validity of distributed information and delete it on the basis of an instruction by Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor.

At the same time a share of foreign financing in news aggregators will have to be limited to 20%.

Failure to abide with these requirements will result in fines that can reach as far as 3 million rubles ($45,100).