Russian search engine Yandex has decided to get sustained with young blood, and announced that is looking for cooperation with perspective startups. The company is ready to provide them with its API services, let use social network interconnection graphs, and cooperate in every way.

There are many directions that are of Yandex interest: new business models on the Internet, new services, multimedia technologies, geolocation tools, analysis, personal (e-mail, signups etc.) and public information stream (news, blogs etc.) structuring. Besides that, the company is interested in methods of users’ behavior analysis, and also in web-service and application interface solutions.

Searching for new talents with interesting ideas, the company works close with a few startup communities: StartupPoint, Higher School of Economics business incubator, GreenfieldProject, Academy of National Economy business incubator. Other communities and projects, willing to join, may write to ventures@yandex-team.ru

In order to communicate with startuppers, Yandex is planning to have a specialized Doors Open Day – Yandex.Start. The first this kind of event will be held at StartupPoint.

It’s worth mentioning, that before today’s official announcement, Yandex quietly did the same. For instance, when Yandex was visiting Volgograd, Afishi.ru portal, informing users about cultural events (movies, theatres, parties etc.), tried to become friends with Russian #1 searching engine. It actually didn’t work out, told Sergo Narsia, Afishi.ru founder.

Before the day of July 1, when Belorussian Internet segment (Bynet) bright future is going to become true (in accordance with decree #60), local Internet users decided to point out Alexander Lukashenko at the “weaknesses” of the decree. In order to collect signatures, there was published an open letter to the President, “Decree #60 – No!!!” For that purpose a special website was made.

In this letter they remind that on February 1 the President signed a decree, called “Measures on national Internet segment usage improvement”. Later, “the Republic of Belarus Council of Ministers adopted a number of regulations, calling to explain” the decree. Acts of state are of a great concern to the letter authors, for the acts obviously have 6 weak places.

“Variant readings” - the first and the main place. That means that some decree provisions are understood diversely in different departments. These variant readings result in the second weak place – capital outflow, what is considered to be inevitable.

The other weak places are: great labor and time consumption, that will be needed for email and subdomain registration; free Web-hosting destruction; severe requirements of user ID evaluation, which would cause WiFI Hotspots death; mobility, accessibility and speed privation of the Belorussian Internet.

“We, the Republic of Belarus citizens, consider the regulations, indicated in this letter, not only useless in disputable issues of the national Internet segment usage, but, to the contrary, disorienting status quo” – said in the letter.

So far, there are 1400 people who have signed the letter, asking the President to annul the decree and widely discuss the problem; engage specialists and public members, in order to find ultimate solutions.

Meanwhile, the Government continues to follow the earlier selected direction. In particular, it has become known that they are working out a draft law, prescribing punishment for violating decree #60. Ministry of communications pronounced, that the draft law is going to have not only administrative responsibility, but also criminal responsibility. The cases, a lawbreaker will be imprisoned for, are not specified.