Judging by year-end roundups of events in Western IT publications, one gets to think that these publications fall into two categories, namely those for readers who can count to ten, and those for readers who can count to three. Therefore, wrapping up events of the past year in our journal, we have compiled the world's only digest of the most notable 2006 events in the Russian segment of the Internet, covering all major deals and new projects, court proceedings and governmental programs, main IT conferences and the most noteworthy events in the life of Russian Internet surfers.

All the hype surrounding Apple's iPhone podphone is further proof that today's consumer society is ruled by design for lonely women and sissies. This problem is especially relevant for Russia, where women dominate over men both numerically and in terms of a more active role in life. In his column, Webplanet's editor-in-chief offers a stern Russian view of the fashionable toy.

The pre-New Year update of the Yandex Thematic Index of Citing (TIC) proved a bad surprise for webmasters and optimizers. Websites with a large number of backward links dropped 30 to 50 percent in their ranking. "Today we did another update of the Thematic Index of Citing. A noticeable reduction in the website rank means that many links to the website came from 'bad-quality' pages or have been flagged as link spam," Yandex press service chief Mikhail Ushakov told Webplanet. In all likelihood, these changes represent the first step on the part of Yandex in its struggle against link buying, which is tantamount to buying the TIC.

To get a picture of the future of Runet, the Russian segment of the Internet, Webplanet has polled its most prominent figures, asking them to name two or three most significant events or trends they expect in 2007. One of the major events are the presidential elections slated for 2008, ahead of which we will see mass buyouts of content projects and an overall increase in investments channeled into Runet. Big changes (possibly a financial collapse) are expected at the company SUP, which manages the Russian-language segment of LiveJournal. Also named among the upcoming trends are buoyant growth and redistribution of the contextual advertising market, gambling market trouble in Runet, and more stringent copyright enforcement.

At 2 p.m. on January 10, Gazeta.ru suffered a hacker attack that shut down the web portal, according to NEWSru.com. In what appears to be a strange coincidence, once the website went back online its front page featured an article entitled "Secret Swine in Moscow City Hall". Later in the day Gazeta.ru reported that all Internet media have lost their accreditation with the Moscow government. In recent months Gazeta.ru has been in the spotlight in connection with its acquisition by the publishing house Kommersant.

Google has reached a deal with Samsung whereby Google will install its mobile phone applications on Samsung handsets to be accessed with a press of a key. Webplanet previously reported about the search service of Yandex, a plug-in for which can be downloaded by owners of Nokia mobile phones. Yet Google's combination obviously has more appeal. From now on buyers of Samsung handsets will not have to download any additional software, as their phones will come with preinstalled Google Search, Google Maps, and a Gmail client. Samsung goes neck and neck with Nokia in terms of handset sales in Russia.

Russian online casinos risk being deprived of electronic cash due to recent amendments to the law "On Government Regulation of the Gambling Business and Amendments to Individual Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation," which bans online gambling as of January 1, 2007. Yandex previously announced its refusal to process payments in favor of online casinos via Yandex.Money. The payment system Moneymail.ru is planning to follow suit.

The Russian domain name registrar Ru-Center has published a forecast according to which the number of domain names in the top level domain .RU will exceed one million. A 700-thousandth domain name was registered recently, while the .RU domain exceeded the threshold of 500 thousand domain names on April 7, 2006. Yet compared to other countries Russia is not doing all that well. In terms of the number of registered domains Russia is way behind Germany with 10 million domain names and Great Britain with 5 million. Still Russia is ahead of France, which currently has only 500,000 registered domain names.

The company DEPO Computers, which is part of the IBS group of system integration companies, has acquired a nearly 100% stake in Softkey, the flagship online distributor of software in the Russian segment of the Internet. The company has no intention of renaming Softkey, and its current director Felix Muchnik will continue in his position. The amount of the deal has not been disclosed, but sources of Webplanet claim it could be up to $500,000. Despite the estimated 2006 sales of $11 million, the company is still not making a profit. But according to other estimates, Softkey may be making anywhere between zero and $12 million. The deal is primarily expected to increase the total value of Softkey assets. Next year Felix Muchnik plans to double the company's sales yet again.

Golden Telecom has announced its acquisition of a controlling stake in the Moscow-based Ethernet provider Corbina. It is thought that Corbina may help GT resolve its difficulties with last-mile access to subscribers and with the installation of hardware for the Wi-Fi network which Golden Telecom is now building. Corbina itself will be able to give up plans to build its own Wi-Fi network and instead focus on providing Ethernet access services. A key condition of the deal is that Corbina will establish a presence in international markets through an IPO. Under the terms of the deal, owners of 51% of Corbina shares will receive 8% of Golden Telecom shares and $10 million, which puts the current value of the company at $280 million.