More than 1,800 instances of the government-led abuse of Russian Internet users’ rights for unrestricted access to web-based information last year were brought to light in a muckraking report issued last week by a Russian civil rights group. Agora, an interregional association of Russian civil rights NGOs set up in 2005 to bring together lawyers …
Civil activists expose violations of Internet freedom across Russia Read More
Yandex (NASDAQ: YNDX) has launched its Winter Games 2014 project, providing Russians with detailed, up-to-the-minute coverage of events at the international sporting event in Sochi. The project’s website will feature complete information about all the competitions: timetables and telecasts, reports on every kind of contest and articles about the medal contenders.
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, has judged it impossible at this stage to block access to Looo.ch, a website that offers a bilingual “Illustrated Textbook on Homosexuality for Kids” – a satire on homophobia in Russia and Ukraine. “If a boy with a boy is OK, then …
Regulator fails to ban site offering satirical pro-gay “textbook for kids” Read More
CTC Media, a major Russian media company, has signed an agreement with KupiVIP.ru, Russia’s leading fashion flash sales site, on the joint creation of a new brand of women’s fashion items. The online brand and shop – the first of its kind on the Russian media scene – is scheduled for launch in April of …
CTC Media teams up with KupiVIP to launch new online fashion brand Read More
Competition in the saturated Russian online travel sector is fierce, and one of the main players last week took the dramatic step of a complete rebranding as it seeks to differentiate itself from its rivals. Skolkovo resident Oktogo, which was supposed to be read OK-to-go (a fact lost on many), has adopted the name Travel.ru, …
Oktogo.ru raises $5 million and switches to Travel.ru Read More
101StartUp, a Russian Internet fund launched recently, has invested $1.2 million in Fishki.net, a user-generated comedic content website, in exchange for a 25% stake. The news was reported last week by Venture-News.ru based on an interview with Mikhail Gurevich, one of the fund’s managers and an existing Fishki shareholder. The site will use investor money to …
Yandex, Russia’s leading search engine and major Internet group, announced yesterday that it acquired KinoPoisk (in Russian: “Cinema Search”), the largest Russian language portal on movies, TV programs and celebrities. This site’s database contains 100 million movie descriptions and ratings with associated trailers, user commentaries and advertising. Each month, it attracts nearly 16 million unique …
Yandex acquires leading movie portal KinoPoisk from France’s AlloCine Read More
Fastlane Ventures, Prostor Capital, and Runa Capital have shaken hands to combine two sites in the field of online health and medicine: VitaPortal, which has been funded so far by Fastlane, Prostor, and US business angel Esther Dyson, and Zdorovie Online, which is coming from Runa’s portfolio. Launched in 2011 as a medical news and …
Fastlane, Prostor and Runa merge assets to create online health and medicine leader Read More
Last week Oktogo.ru announced the acquisition of information portal Travel.ru for a price of “up to $2 million including stock incentives,” according to a company statement. Founded in 1998, Travel.ru is one of the oldest resources in the Russian-language online travel segment. It reaches approximately 1.7 million users each month with up to 5 million page …
Online hotel booking service Oktogo.ru acquires information portal Travel.ru Read More
Last Friday, the First Deputy Director of the Presidential Administration, Vyacheslav Volodin, met with representatives of Russian media and Internet companies. Among the participants were top managers of leading Internet and media companies operating in Russia, including Arkady Volozh, the CEO of search engine giant Yandex, Maëlle Gavet, CEO of major e-commerce site Ozon.ru, and …
Kremlin meets with Internet industry leaders to discuss self-regulation Read More
A minority stake in Banki.ru, one of the largest B2C banking portals on the Russian-language Internet, has changed hands. Finam Global, a Moscow-based investment fund, sold it earlier this month to Russia Partners Technologies, a high tech focused fund run by Russia Partners. Philipp Ilyin-Adaev, the founder and CEO of Banki.ru, hopes that the involvement …
Russian-US PE fund Russia Partners acquires minority stake in Banki.ru Read More
A few months after the merger of Avito,ru, Olx.ru, and Slando.ru, which have formed Russia’s leading online classifieds company, market consolidation continues with Media3’s acquisition of Cian.ru. A major Russian media publishing, commercial printing, and distribution group, Media3 plans to merge Cian.ru and Dmir.ru, a sizable classifieds group with seven thematic platforms – including real …
Media3 acquires realty classifieds site Cian.ru with leadership ambitions Read More
