Radioactive polonium, which British medical experts believe was used to poison the former FSB officer Aleksandr Litvinenko, is available online at the website of the US company United Nuclear Scientific Equipment & Supplies, which offers 0.1-microcurie samples of polonium-210 at the cost of $69. However, the fatal polonium dosage is 1-2 millicuries, or 10 to 20 thousand times higher. The price of such quantity of polonium is $700 to $1,400. A notice on the United Nuclear website reads that polonium can be delivered only within US borders.

St. Petersburg recently hosted a conference entitled "Copyright Protection in the Sphere of Intellectual Property", the National News Agency reports. At the conference, the popular signer and actor Mikhail Boyarskiy complained that each series of knockoff CDs deprives him of some $70,000, while Municipal Culture Committee chairman Nikolai Burov pointed out that in the 21st century artists and performers are the least protected owing to the rapid progress of technologies. Figures cited at the conference further illustrated the situation: St. Petersburg alone is home to some 20 underground shops producing pirated CDs, each of them releasing a staggering 460,000 CDs monthly. The production cost of one pirated CD, including all kickbacks, is around 8 rubles (30 cents). Such disks sell for 100 rubles ($4) apiece on average.

According to the latest report by J'son&Partners entitled "Russian Wi-Fi market 2006-2008", by year's end the number of public hotspots in Russia will exceed 7,000 in what will be an 11-fold market increase. Analysts predict that by the end of 2010 the number of hotspots will reach 13,000. Most of the existing hotspots work as part of the Golden Telecom Wi-Fi project. The market is also growing in other areas of application of the technology. By year's end the number of corporate wireless networks will exceed 500. Analysts point out substantial growth in the Wi-Fi market in the regions, particularly in Privolzhye, Siberia, and Urals federal districts (over 50 new hotspots in 2006). Half of all hotpots work in Moscow. J&P analysts predict that the next step in the spread of the Wi-Fi technology will be the provision of additional paid services on public transport.

The company Internet-Audit, owner of the online music store Alltunes.com, has filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Arbitration Court against Rosbank and its affiliate United Card Services (UCS), which have stopped accepting payments from Visa and MasterCard holders for music purchased at the online store. According to Vedomosti, Visa and MasterCard accounted for 95 to 99 percent of all payments for music bought from Alltunes.com. In a comment to Webplanet, UCS general director Vladimir Komlev pointed out that under contract terms his company may disconnect a client from the system without explaining the reason. But in the case of Alltunes.com the company followed the instructions of the payment systems, which have found the online store to be in violation of copyright laws. A little more than a month ago, Visa and MasterCard ordered their partners to stop processing payments for music bought from Allofmp3.com.

Last week the Government of Moscow staged the first four electronic auctions to buy goods and services for the city's needs. Three of the auctions took place in the electronic trading system SETonline and the fourth on the platform of the company Intertech. SETonline general director Anton Emelyanov told Business that electronic auctions are much cheaper than the conventional ones, costing only 400 US dollars instead of 2,400. Meanwhile, lot prices can go down by as much as 15 to 30 percent. Yet at the last week's auctions prices came down by no more than 11 percent in the face of the small number of suppliers participating in the first round of auctions.

Loic Le Meur, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the blog platform company SixApart in Europe, who came to Russia last week to promote TypePad, seemed unprepared for the fact that LiveJournal and Sup dominate the interest of Russian users. Le Meur believes that LiveJournal only makes money from paying users and users of advanced accounts where sponsors can place unobtrusive advertisements. Le Meur knew nothing about office construction projects along Moscow's Sadovoye Koltso, or Garden Ring Road. He explained this by saying that he is not directly involved with Russia, as SixApart will promote its products in the Russian market only via its partners. One of the services, LiveJournal.com, is now co-managed by the Internet company Sup. Meanwhile, TypePad has been handed over to PPE Group (specifically to Weblog Russia), which has the exclusive right to market the platform within the CIS.

In 2007 and 2008 the agency IMHO VI (Video International group of companies) will have exclusive rights to sell advertising space on the premium banner positions of Vzglyad.ru. Based on the results of a survey of the portal's readership conducted as part of the TNS Web Index project, the agency hopes to get its clients' ads across to the most affluent segment of Internet users. The survey suggests that the publication's monthly readership in Moscow exceeds one million visitors, of whom 39 percent are specialists, 23 percent managers, and 15 percent students. Notably, among online publications Vzglyad has the highest index in the group of managers, which is determined as a ratio between the percentage of managers among the publication's target readership and the percentage of managers in the population of Moscow.

Aleksandr Mamut, owner of the Internet company Sup, said in a live interview with Echo of Moscow radio that his acquisition of the Russian-language segment of LiveJournal is a purely commercial move, not a political one. Mamut does not have a blog of his own, but says he would not mind publishing some of the LiveJournal bloggers. The interview was occasioned by Mamut's acquisition of a 100 percent stake in the publishing group Inostranka. It turns out that the book mogul Mamut is skeptical about the success of e-books. Yet he hinted at what he called an invisible link between his acquisition of LiveJournal and publishing houses and the bookstore chain Bookberry which he owns. "I have a strong emotional affection for book publishing," Mamut said.

The Swedish research company Hallvarsson & Halvarsson has published a rating of European corporate websites. Among the 16 countries featured, Germany has the best corporate websites, while Russian corporations provide the least amount of information for investors, analysts, and rank-and-file buyers of shares. The website of Nornickel, in which Vladimir Potanin owns a stake, placed fourth in the rating of Russian corporate websites, trailing those of Lukoil, Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Corporation, and Aeroflot. Meanwhile, the website of RAO UES placed only fifteenth. According to analysts, companies in Western Europe continue to improve their websites, posting ever increasing amounts of financial and legal information. Leaders in the rating also offer their visitors podcasts, chats, forums, and blogs of top managers.

Representatives of the Regions Party faction in the Kyiv Municipal Council have drafted a resolution titled "Measures to prevent addiction to gambling, computer games, and the Internet among minors". The Regions Party press service explains that a survey of Ukrainian Internet surfers suggests that 85 percent of them are "addicted to the Internet" and that "medical studies confirm the need for medicinal treatment of individuals addicted to computer gaming". If passed, the draft resolution would impose restrictions on the hours when minors can appear at Internet clubs, and ban Internet access to all asocial phenomena – cruelty, violence, and pornography.