Each year specialized research agency Data Insight releases its ranking of Russian e-commerce sites. Sites are ranked by sales volume (incl. VAT), number of orders and average order value as estimated by the research agency and, in certain cases, confirmed by the companies. (The ranking excludes foreign players, which explains why AliExpress is not mentioned.) …
Although Russia’s total share of the global cloud storage market is still under 1%, the sector is undergoing a boom as foreign companies hire local service providers to store Russians’ data, a recent study by iKS-Consulting revealed. Adopted in 2014, Russia’s personal data law requires companies operating in Russia to store Russian users’ or clients’ …
New regulations boost Russia’s cloud service businesses Read More
In the last seven years, the Russian government has drastically tightened its regulation of the Internet, and it has shown no signs of slowing down: on April 16, the State Duma passed a new law enabling the isolation of the Russian segment of the Internet from the World Wide Web. Opposition to the government’s onslaught …
How advocacy group Roskomsvoboda emerged in Russia to combat Internet censorship Read More
International venture partner Saul Orbach recently visited GoTech, a major startup event in Moscow. In this interview, Orbach analyzes the challenges faced by startups from emerging markets willing to go global, providing an interesting comparison between Eastern Europe and Latin America. You are a venture partner of Starta Ventures and BrightSky ventures. Starta Ventures works …
C4ADS, a Washington-based think tank dedicated to data-driven analysis of conflict and security issues worldwide, has released a report to “expose GPS spoofing in Russia and Syria.” Used for a variety of civil and military purposes, GPS and other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are vulnerable, remind the authors of the report: “By attacking positioning, …
US report exposes GPS spoofing in Russia and Syria Read More
Crunchbase and East-West Digital News are teaming up to cover key tech and venture trends from Russia and neighboring countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Since January 2019, EWDN chief editor Adrien Henni has offered a monthly column to highlight the most notable industry facts and trends as well as promising tech innovations from …
Tech Investment in Eastern Europe and Central Asia: March 2019 Read More
The Russian telemedicine market is expected to grow to some 90 billion rubles (approximately $1.4 billion), or 2.8% of the entire healthcare market, by 2030. As new prospects have been opened by a new legal framework, leading Russian companies and investors – including Mail.Ru Group, RDIF, Sberbank, Skolkovo and Yandex, to name just a few …
Vladimir Gurdus: “Artificial intelligence could well become your future practitioner” Read More
When policing online behavior in Russia, law enforcement agencies enjoy total compliance from the country’s most popular social network, Vkontakte, which coughs up users’ personal data whenever requested. This information — account registration times, linked email addresses and phone numbers, and IP addresses — constitutes sufficient evidence in court to prove that an individual is …
How Russian law enforcement identifies Facebook and Telegram users Read More
Last week the Russian edition of Forbes released its annual ranking of the 20 “most valuable companies of the Russian Internet.” Unsurprisingly, NASDAQ-listed Yandex and LSE-listed Mail.Ru Group lead the ranking, with capitalizations of $10.7 billion and $5.6 billion, respectively. Forbes has identified two other unicorns: Avito, the classifieds giant over which Naspers just took …
Forbes ranking features four Russian Internet unicorns Read More
Every year, the social media management platform Hootsuite and the We Are Social agency compiles a Global Digital Yearbook that covers developments in internet, social media, mobile and e-commerce usage throughout the world. We combed through this ever-growing report to distill the 10 key takeaways regarding the current state of Internet usage in Russia: Internet penetration stands at …
In March 2018, the users or Yandex, Russia’s most popular search engine, noticed a peculiar feature: if you typed “govno” – Russian for “sh*t” – in the Yandex.Maps search (who does that?!) the first address Yandex gives you is Moscow, Balchug Street, 7 – the headquarters of Google Inc. in Russia. Hours later Yandex explained …
Facebook and Google’s Russian rivals: Why are they winning? Read More
Russia’s electrical surplus last year reached 20 GW. According to a study conducted by industrial mining solutions provider Bitcluster, that’s enough energy to power 14.8 million of the popular Antminer S9i ASIC devices. If Russia uses the excess electricity to mint digital coins, the state would receive 70 billion rubles (over $1 billion) just from …
Crypto mining could bring Russia $1 billion in taxes, report claims Read More
