As part of the Big World federal project, the local authorities in Cherepovets, Volgograd oblast, have established an information center that should help prevent HIV infection. The center will assist young people who want to learn about ways to avoid HIV, the authorities believe. Counseling will be available both via telephone and through specialized websites. It is believed, however, that apart from having the potential to raise HIV awareness the Internet also raises the risk of infection. The website Gayrussia.ru cites AIDS Foundation data which imply that the recent increase in the spread of HIV infection may be due to the widespread practice of using online dating services, particularly for casual sex.

Anton Nosik, one of the Sup execs, predicted in his interview with Esquire magazine that by 2010 Russia will have 40 million Internet users, while the total number of Russian-speaking web surfers will be 70 to 80 million. Most of the growth should come from users in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Nosik also predicted an impending demise of ICQ and iTunes in the Russian market. Russian-speaking users are now migrating to Gtalk, which supports the open Jabber standard and a multitude of clients. It also stores the message history on a centralized server. As for iTunes, its future is threatened by a more flexible demand management rather than continuing high prices for recordings. Nosik thinks that the Chinese model of Internet censorship is no threat to Russians, since back in 1999 Russia's President Vladimir Putin scrapped a bill that, if signed into law, would introduce mandatory licensing of new Internet media with the Ministry of the Press, while those already existing in the .RU zone would be expropriated and used at the ministry's discretion.

Among top 20 Russian stores that lead in online sales are 13 websites which are storefronts of actual offline stores. Their prices are higher than those of full-time online stores, but this does not discourage buyers who are willing to pay a jacked up price for a familiar brand. The retail trade turnover in the Russian segment of the Internet totaled $1.02 billion in 2005 as compared to the national retail turnover of $243 billion that year. This places Russia on a par with the US in terms of the ratio between the volumes of online and in-store sales. The only thing clouding this accomplishment is the fact that Russians mostly order items online and pay for them in cash upon courier delivery. Notably, market participants have offered sharply differing estimates of the market size. While Ozon.ru representatives peg the market at $600 million, Softkey.ru estimates it at $2.6 billion.

The Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge at the Higher School of Economics has estimated that 21 percent of the Russian population use the Internet, which represents a threefold increase from 2003. However, the number of active users has grown on a more moderate scale. They currently represent 13 percent of the population versus 9 percent in 2003. At the same time, 57 percent of Russians say they have no use for the Internet, while 2 percent have expressed hostility toward the web. The reasons behind such indifference are rather banal: some think the web is cluttered with spam and pornography, while for others it is impossible to get connected. There is also a shortage of practically useful services.

A Yoshkar-Ola court has jailed two Muscovites for attempted insurance fraud involving a plot to kill a person. One of the accomplices took out a EUR 1 million insurance policy, after which they hired a student from the Republic of Mari-El to work as a system administrator in Moscow. The criminals plotted to kill and burn the system administrator in a staged car accident and pass his corpse off as the body of the insured accomplice. Yet the student was lucky to survive, exposing the criminals. The foiled scam resulted in jail sentences of 13 and 12 years for the two accomplices and 150,000 rubles in moral damages to be paid to the victim.

The Moscow-based broadband Internet access provider Corbina Telecom has failed in its attempt to sign up 180,000 new broadband subscribers by year's end despite a spate of promotional events the likes of the Miss Breasts contest. Last year the ISP also tried to gain publicity through scandal by posting a homophobic promo flick on its website. This year Corbina fell short of its target by 60,000 subscribers. During the year the company added 102,000 new subscribers, but most of them, some 55,000, signed up during the last four months of 2006. The company also failed to connect the planned number of buildings. Out of the originally planned 27,000, the company managed to get only 20,000 buildings online. Despite this setback, the ISP has not abandoned its ambitious expansion plans. Next year Corbina plans to build a network of Wi-Fi hotspots throughout Moscow and start deploying broadband access networks in other major European cities of Russia and possibly in Moscow oblast.

The manufacturer of Russian Standard vodka has bought the domain names vodka.ru and vodka.com. Experts estimate that the former could carry a price tag of $10,000. Meanwhile, sources of Webplanet claim that several months ago this domain name was offered for sale by its previous owner, the famous Russian designer Artemy Lebedev, for as much as $70,000. The price of vodka.com, which Russian Standard bought from Nett Corp., should have been at least $1 million. According to sources of Reuters, it was $3 million. The domain names will be used primarily to promote the Russian Standard vodka brand on the web.

Skype has started accepting payments from Russian users of the Yandex.Money payment system. As part of its promotion drive, Yandex offers one year of free voice mail service to the first 15,000 users to pay for Skype services with Yandex money. This deal may hurt the earnings of the Russian developer of voice communication software Mail.ru Agent, which is promoted through the Mail.ru portal. Mail.ru marketing and PR director Anna Artamonova stated previously that the inconveniences involved in paying for Skype services were an advantage for the Agent whose users can refill their accounts through local banks and payment systems.

As part of his visit to Krasnoyarsk, Russia's First Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visited a local school where students showcased their own websites and complained about a "severely restricted access to the Internet". Apparently, this stops them from surfing the web as much as they would like to. In fact, this does not prevent students from fully enjoying educational benefits, as Russia has yet to develop its own e-learning programs. Still Dmitry Medvedev promised students Internet access, saying that their schools will be connected in the near future. A month earlier Medvedev visited a school in Tyumen oblast only to see that it did not have functional Internet access. Then promises were also made to the ranking official to get the school online in the immediate future.

The publishing house Afisha Industries attempted to legally stop Film.ru website from showing advertisements related to the search results for the word 'afisha'('playbill'). The company considers such use of the word 'afisha' unacceptable, since Film.ru and Afisha.ru are rival websites. Representatives of Entertime, which owns Film.ru, consider the claims of the publishing house to be unfounded, stating that the word "afisha" originated in the Russian language much sooner than the relevant trademark was registered. It is noteworthy that there is no publication called 'Afisha'. There is the website Afisha.ru and a magazine entitled Afisha. All Entertainments of Moscow". At the same time, Russian laws do not impose any restrictions on the way ads are selected in contextual advertising, but only regulate the use of proprietary brand names in the context of advertisements.