THE HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEGAL REGULATIONOF DIGITAL (INTERNET) SPACE IN RUSSIA

The article examines the general trends in the development of legal regulation of the digital (Internet) space in the Russian Federation. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between the development of technologies and their involvement in economic turnover with the level of legislative regulation. The purpose of the research is to identify the main patterns of Russian law-making activity. The following methods were used as the methodological basis of the research: legal hermeneutics, used to reveal the main provisions of the legislation; historical-critical, used to display cause-and-effect relationships in the development of the legal regulation system. Results: The prerequisites for the emergence of legal regulation of the digital (Internet) space in Russia appeared simultaneously with the spread of the Internet in society — in the 1990s, but legislative acts did not directly affect the relevant area, and the regulation was carried out primarily through self-regulation. Nevertheless, government agencies made attempts at rule-making. Special legislation began to appear in 2006, simultaneously with the popularization of the Internet in commercial circulation. Active lawmaking began under the influence of social networks; the legislator was forced to begin to take into account the specifics of this phenomenon. The modern fourth stage of legislative development began after the spread of distributed registry technology (blockchain) in economic circulation and is characterized by attempts to use the technological capabilities of the digital environment in legal regulation.