VKontakte.ru, Russia’s leading social network also known as VK.com, has recently won two cases brought against them for infringing the copyright of certain songs featured on their website. Experts are struggling to agree on whether or not the social network will be invulnerable to such claims in the future. Nikitin Digital Media Content lost a lawsuit …
The image of Skolkovo, the international innovation hub under completion on the outskirts of Moscow, has been severely damaged by a report from the Prosecutor General’s Office following an across-the-board investigation into the Skolkovo Foundation, the nonprofit organization in charge of the project. The report states that 50 billion rubles (around $1.6 billion) were allocated …
Skolkovo misused $1 billion, Viktor Vekselberg personally cited in prosecutor’s report Read More
The Bank of Russia has fined the Mail.ru Group 500,000 rubles (approximately $15,000) for refusing to provide data on users’ personal messages. A leading, LSE-listed Russian Internet company, the Mail.ru Group controls the country’s leading webmail service with one of every two mail boxes in Russia. In August 2013, the Federal Service for Financial Markets …
Mail.ru Group fined for refusing to divulge private correspondence Read More
Pavel Vrublevsky, the founder and main owner of electronic payment company ChronoPay, was sentenced to 2.5 years in jail for orchestrating a cyber attack on a competitor. This conviction is the result of a two-year legal imbroglio that some feel has been plagued with procedural infringements and bias. The Tushinsky Court of Moscow ruled last week …
ChronoPay founder jailed after controversial trial Read More
A Moscow court ruled earlier this week that Russia’s Federal Service for Financial Markets (FSFM) broke the law when it fined Rambler Internet Holding, a sizable Russian-language news portal and webmail service, for protecting its users’ constitutional right to privacy in email correspondence. The FSFM had ordered Rambler to disclose email information during the financial …
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, released its annual report on the personal data law last week. The agency reported 53 personal data leaks in Russia in 2012. Around 30 cases involved non-compliance with the requirements of the personal data law, while the remaining 20 cases involved an …
State authorities uncovered 53 personal data leaks in 2012 Read More
Fugitive former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden flew from Hong Kong to Moscow this Sunday on Aeroflot flight, two days after the US authorities charged him with espionage. His yet unknown further destination may be Cuba, Ecuador or Venezuela, according to media reports. The US government had asked Hong Kong to send Snowden home. But the Hong …
The Court of Arbitration for Russia’s Northwest Federal District last week let stand all prior court decisions obligating VKontakte.ru (VK.com), Russia’s number one social network, to pay Gala Records, the first private record label in Russia, a total of 550,000 rubles (about $17,700) in damages for illicit displays of 11 tracks by MakSim, a Russian …
Court upholds Gala Records damage claims against VKontakte over Russian pop singer tracks Read More
The three-year federal embezzlement investigation into Russia’s GLONASS national satellite navigation program saw a new development earlier this month as Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court ruled to keep in custody both the former and current CEOs of Synertech, a Moscow-based company contracted for R&D work by Russian Space Systems – one of Russia’s key space exploration …
More embezzlement seen at GLONASS – $213 million total over three years Read More
In a continuation of the political and legal troubles that have plagued it over the past few months, last week Skolkovo, the state-sponsored innovation hub nearing completion on the outskirts of Moscow, lost one of its senior managers as well as its main protector in the Kremlin. At the end of April the Skolkovo Foundation …
The Vkontakte drama saw new developments this weekend with TV Rain’s Leonid Parfenov – one of Russia’s most renowned journalists – asserting on his Sunday program that Pavel Durov, the co-founder and CEO of Russia’s leading social network, is currently in Buffalo, NY, “obviously with no intention of returning to Russia.” The journalist linked Durov’s …
Vkontakte founder Pavel Durov said to be creating an alternative social network in the US Read More
United Capital Partners (UCP), a major Russian fund operating in various industries, claims to have acquired a 48% stake in the country’s leading social network Vkontakte.ru, also known as VK.com. The transaction has been put at doubt, however, by the site’s co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov. “According to the company’s charter, existing shareholders have preferential acquisition rights, and we …
Drama at Vkontakte: UCP claims 48% stake, CEO is involved in police investigation Read More
