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The company has published a ranking of . This year's ranking is topped by information agencies RIA Novosti, Interfax, and ITAR-Tass, while last year media outlets were nowhere near the top 100 brands. WebScan Technologies attributes this to the implementation of more stringent intellectual property protection controls on the Web. The information agency , which is not among the top 100 brands, has published expert opinions on the matter. A number of Internet company representatives have stated that methods used to form the rating are not transparent and its results are not to be trusted.
Aleksandr Strakh, legal expert on the protection of Microsoft Corporation's intellectual property in Russia and the CIS, assumes that the company may reach an amicable settlement with Aleksandr Ponosov, the infamous school principal in the village of Sepych. Aleksandr Ponosov has been taken to court following a revelation that PCs used in his school's computer class ran on unlicensed Microsoft software. Investigators claim that the director could not produce license labels and installation CDs to prove that the software is licensed. The new wording of Article 146 of the Criminal Code, under which Ponosov has been prosecuted, makes it impossible for the company to close the case by dropping its claims against the school principal, while formerly a statement from the plaintiff could serve this purpose. Aleksandr Ponosov faces 5 years behind bars in addition to having to pay 260,000 rubles ($9,650) in damages.
Several torrent trackers have simultaneously stopped working in Tomsk. The forum community in Tomsk has attributed the closures to a possible operation to combat distribution of pirated software and multimedia content. The Interior Department in Tomsk region has denied there is an operation underway and refused to comment on whether it may have anything to do with the closures. Meanwhile, it has become known that usage of p2p channels among Tomsk ISPs has dropped 4 to 5 times. This leads one to believe that the possible reason behind the closures may be attempts to curb excessive traffic. Vadim Andrianov, creator of the Already in Tomsk website, believes that since the website torrents.tomsk.ru continues to respond to ping requests and serves existing downloads, this rules out the possibility of its hardware having been seized by the Department K. In a similar incident with the website EliteTorrents.org, the site administrator was sentenced to 5 months behind bars and 5 months of house arrest along with a $3,000 fine for illegally distributing movies, music, and software.
In an unprecedented ruling, the municipal court of Abakan ordered the website New Focus to register as a media outlet in order to resume its operation. Observers fear that this precedent might be used by other courts to justify closure of other network resources, even though such registration is still voluntary. Justice Svetlana Shapovalova handed down this ruling despite a date error exposed in the investigation materials, as a result of which the case had to be dismissed under the statute of limitations. The lawyer of New Focus chief editor Mikhail Afanasyev said she would appeal the ruling with the Supreme Court of the Republic of Khakassia.
general director Dmitry Grishyn said in an interview with that he is closely watching the development of his Western competitors – , , and possibly In his view, the best business model is to have users to accumulate personal information on your portal, such as photo albums, blogs, and other services. Such people are much harder to lure for competitors. Mail.ru marketing director Anna Artamonova has confirmed that Mail.ru services are designed in such a way as to get users to grow attached to them, unlike with its English-language interface. Dmitry Grishyn also said that instant messaging is the only area where Mail.ru does not have a lead, but is second with its Mail.ru Agent messenger.
The company Rambler Media has finalized a deal to transfer its television channel Rambler-TV to the company Osgora Productions Ltd, an affiliate of the Prof-Media holding, which recently acquired a stake in Rambler Media itself. Rambler Media representatives have said that $23 million in proceeds from the sale of the television channel will be used to buy profitable projects that will supplement the key Internet services of . It's a somewhat bewildering statement, since in terms of the number of its Internet service offers Rambler goes neck and neck with the two other market leaders – and , while prices for internet projects in the Russian segment of the Internet have soared to a point where it may not be always wise to buy them. In all likelihood, the cash infusion is not likely to help the Internet holding to increase its market presence. Alternatively, this could be accomplished by tweaking with the company's management and development strategy. Yet market participants believe that Prof-Media is not usually inclined to change the management of the companies it acquires.
Web designer Artemy Lebedev Apple's iPhone as part of his Business Lynch project that features his critique of young web designers' work. He is perplexed by the "idiotic American idea of tying the handset to a specific mobile operator" and the fact that there is little feedback from those who tested the new iPhone. "A handset without keys is crap because you just can't dial a number without looking while driving. And you can't even send a short message properly. The only hope is that producers, the likes of Griffin or Belikin, have already started developing a compatible keyboard," he writes. Instead of using a full-size sensor screen, keyboards of Artemy Lebedev's design studio consist of keys with OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screens, which can be configured to perform any function.
In December, street stalls with pirated CDs started selling a digital database of addresses, telephones, and personal details of high-ranking clients of Moscow prostitutes, along with police materials of high-profile criminal cases and tapped telephone conversations. The database contains details of some 90,000 individuals and has a price tag of 1,500 rubles ($55). At least 1,000 CDs with the database are said to have been released. Yet some experts have questioned the fact that the Moscow police may be the source of the leak. Many believe this might be a mere publicity stunt by pirates seeking to rev up sales of other databases containing private information of Russian citizens.
The website "" has added a new section entitled "School of Presidents". Visitors are invited to take a quiz of ten questions. For example, "Imagine that you are President of Russia. You have invited an Arab sheikh over for breakfast to discuss world oil prices over a cup of coffee. What kind of treat would you offer him? What can be served with coffee?" Visitors are offered a choice of four answers of which three are different pork products. Those who successfully pass the test are invited to join the "school". The study course features somewhat more relevant information about the country's administrative and territorial system, presidential powers and functions, and suchlike. Andrey Varlamov, deputy head of the Presidential Press Service Department, says that Vladimir Putin is familiar with the website content.
The group of companies Rambler Media has announced the release of a new version of the messenger based on ICQ 5.1. The new client is even more integrated into Rambler's social services: video hosting service, blogging platform, and photo gallery service called . Now the client can be used to view videos and receive blog and photo gallery comment alerts. The new release has been a long time in coming. The original ICQ 5.1 client was released back in May. Many did not expect to ever see the Russian version of 5.1 as the ICQ 6.0 client is said to be coming soon.
