Re: Yandex Ru
Wynona Aerni
Yandex LLC (Russian: Яндекс, romanized: Yandeks, .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-smallfont-size:85%.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-smallfont-size:100%IPA: [ˈjandəks]) is a Russian multinational technology company[5] providing Internet-related products and services, including an Internet search engine called Yandex Search, launched in 1997, information services, e-commerce, transportation, maps and navigation, mobile applications, and online advertising.[6][2] Yandex Holding Company was incorporated in 2000. As of 2016, it primarily served audiences in Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Turkey and countries with a significant Russian-speaking population.[7]
As of 2017, the firm was the largest technology company in Russia.[8] It had more than 30 offices worldwide in 2018.[9] Its main competitors in the Russian market are Google, Microsoft, VK, and Rambler. Yandex Search has the largest market share of any search engine from Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, and is the third largest search engine worldwide after Google and Bing.[10]
Yandex LLC's holding company, Yandex N.V., is a naamloze vennootschap (Dutch public limited company)[11] with its head office listed at an address of a virtual office in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.[12] Yandex N.V. is listed on Nasdaq and has a secondary listing on the Moscow Exchange, although trading in Yandex shares on Nasdaq was suspended in February 2022.[13]
In September 2005, it opened an office in Ukraine[19] and launched www.yandex.ua.[20] In 2007, Yandex introduced a customized search engine for Ukrainian users;[21] Yandex also opened its development center in Kyiv in May 2007. In 2008, Yandex extended its presence in Ukraine by increasing bandwidth between Moscow data centers and UA-IX in Ukraine fivefold.[22] In 2009, all services of www.yandex.ua were localized for the Ukrainian market.[23] In 2010, Yandex launched its "Poltava" search engine algorithm for Ukrainian users, based on its MatrixNet technology.[24]
There are more than 35 principles. These include: "We do not develop technology for military purposes", "We comply with the laws of each country that we operate in and try to constructively contribute to any proposed legislation that concerns technology or the market", and "The products and services that we make don't have any persuasion or political overtones."[27] For example, Yandex advertising services do not accept political ads.[28]
In December 2022 it became known that "Yandex" registered the company Beyond ML in Armenia.[35] On December 30, Arkady Volozh announced his departure from Yandex by publishing a letter to employees on the company's internal portal.[36]
In March 2007, it acquired Russian social networking service moikrug.ru.;[37] on June 16, 2008, Yandex acquired SMILink, a Russian road traffic monitoring agency, to merge with Yandex.Maps services.[38] In September 2008, the company acquired the rights to the Punto Switcher software program, an automatic Russian to English keyboard layout switcher.[39]
In September 2010, it invested in a $4.3 million financing round by Face.com.[40] The company was acquired by Facebook in 2012. In December 2010, the firm launched Yandex.Start to find startups and work with them systematically, and purchased WebVisor's behavior analysis technology in December 2010.[41][42] In September 2011, it invested in Blekko as part of a $30 million financing round.[43][44] In November 2011, it acquired software developer SPB Software for $38 million.[45][46] In June 2012, it acquired a 25% stake in Seismotech, for $1 million.[47][48] On January 26, 2011, it introduced premium placement opportunity in its Business directory in which advertisers' local small businesses are highlighted.[49] On January 27, 2011, the company acquired single sign-in service Loginza.[50]
In August 2011, Yandex acquired The Tweeted Times, a news delivery startup.[51] In September 2011, it launched a search engine and a range of other services in Turkey, opening an office in Istanbul.[52]
In October 2013, the company acquired KinoPoisk, the biggest Russian movie search engine.[53][54][55] In February 2014, Yandex invested several million dollars in MultiShip.[56][57] In March 2014, it acquired Israeli geolocation startup KitLocate and opened a research and development (R&D) office in Israel.[58][59][60] In June 2014, it acquired Auto.ru, an online marketplace and classified advertising website for automobiles, for $175 million.[61][62] In December 2015, it acquired Internet security company Agnitum .[63] On June 6, 2017, the company invested in a $5 million financing round by Doc+.[64] In December 2017, it acquired food delivery Foodfox.[65] On February 7, 2018, Uber and Yandex NV merged their businesses in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus and Georgia. Uber invested $225 million and owns 36.6% stake in the venture while Yandex invested $100 million and owns a 59.3% stake.[66]
In May 2018, Sberbank and Yandex completed a joint venture deal to develop a B2C eCommerce ecosystem.[67] In October 2018, Yandex acquired Edadil (Russian: Едадил, lit. "grocery deals"), a deal aggregator service.[68]
In June 2021, Yandex, VTB Bank, LANIT Group and computer hardware producer Gigabyte founded a joint venture to start producing servers in Russia in 2022.[69] In October 2021, construction of a new plant in Ryazan Oblast was launched with 1 billion roubles during the first stage of investments. The new plant will produce servers, data storage systems, gateways and smart equipment under "Openyard" brand.[70] However, in June 2023 Yandex announced it was looking for ways to exit the joint venture.[71]
In January 2022, Yandex acquired "eLama", digital advertising platform, waiting for the approval from Federal Antimonopoly Service.[72] That same month Yandex has also bought "BandLink" music service.[73]
On May 24, 2011, it raised $1.3 billion in an initial public offering on NASDAQ, the biggest initial public offering for a dot-com company since Google's offering in 2004.[75] Among the largest investors were Baring Vostok Capital Partners, which owned a 30% stake, and Tiger Technologies, which owned a 15% stake.[76][77]
In March 2022, Yandex warned shareholders about the risk of default if holders of Yandex N.V. wished to use their right to pay them off early. Before that, the trading of Yandex securities on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ was suspended due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.[79] In September 2022, Yandex bought back 98.7% of issued Yandex N.V convertible bonds.[80]
In April 2022, TechCrunch reported that Yandex signed an agreement with VK holding with regard to the sale of News and Zen media services together with the main page yandex.ru[81]In September 2022, News, Zen, and yandex.ru were transferred to a new owner.[82]At the same time ya.ru became Yandex's new main page as well as the key entry point for Search, Mail, and other non-media services.[83]
In November 2022, the board of directors of Yandex N.V. announced a possible restructuring of the company.The main part of the business will be placed into a separate group of companies that will keep the Yandex brand, which may be registered in Russia.The international parts of some businesses will be placed into separate companies under the control of Dutch Yandex N.V., which will eventually leave the shareholders of the Russian Yandex Group.[84]
In March 2023, the NASDAQ exchange announced its intention to delist Yandex and a number of other companies doing business in Russia. Yandex appealed this decision. NASDAQ granted the appeal, given the company's plans to separate Russian and foreign businesses. The suspension of trading remains in effect.[85]
In May 2023, Yandex announced that it received applications from potential investors for the purchase of an economic share in the company.Economic investors will not be able to influence the company's activities. And voting control and management will remain with the top management of Yandex.Among the main applicants were private industrial investors Vagit Alekperov (Lukoil Founder) and Vladimir Potanin.[86]
In 2008, Yandex opened a technology and business development unit called Yandex Labs in Silicon Valley.[25] In 2011, the Istanbul office was launched together with the company's web portal in Turkey in 2011.[52]
In 2012, the company opened its first European office in Lucerne to serve advertising clients in the EU.[87] Its first research and development office in Europe started operating in Berlin in 2014.[88] In 2015, the company's Shanghai office was launched to facilitate work with Chinese companies operating on the Russian language market.[89]As of 2018 it had more than 30 offices worldwide.[9]In December 2021 a new location in Prague was added to accommodate the company's rapidly expanding crowdsourcing, routing, cloud computing, ridesharing and weather forecasting teams.[90]As of 2021, Yandex had offices in 12 countries.[91]
In 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism said that Yandex-delivered ads promoted misinformation about the war in Ukraine which were produced by more than half a dozen Russian-language news sites.[103] Many of the articles displayed in Yandex's news aggregators were also from Russian state-owned and state-sponsored sources while the top search results about the war would sometimes prominently feature pro-war websites.[104]
Yandex.Games is an Internet gaming platform made by Yandex, which is available on both browser and mobile.[citation needed] As of 2022, the number of games included in the catalog exceeded 10,000,[105] with more than 11 million players a month.[106] The platform provides two types of income: advertising and in-app purchases. There is also an in-game currency called "Yans".[106]
Developers add their games to the catalog independently and edit them in the future. All games are moderated. Mandatory requirements include integration with the Yandex.Games SDK, support for HTTPS and offline Service Worker mode.[107] Game developers follow the updates of the platform in the blog, and content is provided by companies all over the world (e.g. Dutch media platform Azerion[108]).
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