A Russian Internet industry think tank has proposed making companies legally responsible for Internet traffic flowing on their networks if it uses the UDP protocol. Discouraging the use of UDP in this way is designed to stymie BitTorrent clients, most of which have switched from the more usual TCP protocol to the simpler, connectionless UDP, according to a report on the Cnews site (Google translation).

The proposal forms part of a larger "media and information roadmap" (Russian PDF), which comes from the Internet Development Institute, set up earlier this year by organisations representing the main Internet, software, and media companies in Russia. The aims of the think tank are to create a forum for industry discussions, carry out research, and "dialogue with the authorities."

The media and information roadmap also proposes that the main pirate sites should be excluded from Russian search engines, and that filters should be applied to all online searches in order to block access to pirated material. Other suggestions include the greater use of anti-piracy technologies such as watermarking digital content. Copyright holders say they would like to "help" the Internet industry combat piracy through the use of US-style DMCA take-down notices.

However, the leading Russian search engine, Yandex, told Cnews that it believed the new measures were unnecessary, since copyright owners already had all the necessary legal tools in order to fight against illegal content. Moreover, banning sites from search engines raises issues about who decides which sites should be removed, while the US DMCA system has led to search engines like Google dealing with huge numbers of takedowns.

Although the Internet Development Institute's proposal comes from an industry think tank, not from the Russian government, it may be viewed favourably by the latter when it is formally presented to President Putin next month. It would allow the authorities to claim that they are addressing previous complaints about Russian pirate sites, while tightening government control over how people use the Internet in Russia yet further.

Update at 4.00pm GMT, October 26: As Ars reader photovirus notes, the head of the Internet Development Institute now says that, in the latest version of the roadmap, the more ridiculous elements detailed above have been removed.