Articles prepared by Michael Novikov for EuropeMedia in 2001
Austrian Internet investor red-stars.com that was liquidated in the summer of 2001 is coming back to the Russian market. red-stars.com was founded in March of 2000 to provide direct investments in East European Internet companies. Austrian branch of Siemens was its major investor (25%). In Russia red-stars.com acquired shares in Actis Systems (e-solution provider), Skate and StockAccess (financial information agencies), Promo.ru (Internet marketing company) and Remedicus (medical portal). In August 2001 red-stars.com was closed caused by stop financing from Siemens and failure in negotiations with EBRD. In November of 2001 red-stars.com announced renewal of its operations in Russia. By that time the holding's shareholder structure was different. The red-stars.com founder Thomas Streimelweger had about 90%, his partners became Dietmar Pokorny (one of the holding's top managers) and Sergei Moiseyev (managing director of StockAccess data GmbH). On November 28 the German investment company Kremlin AG informed in its press release about purchasing a stack in the red-stars.com holding. Kremlin AG is operating in Russia since 1999 managing a Russian company stock portfolio of about DEM five millions. It's also a publisher of financial biweekly Moskauer Bursenbrief. Kremlin AG is not a new partner for red-stars.com. At the end of 2000 Kremlin AG acquired 5% of StockAccess. According to Thies Ziemke, a head of Kremlin AG, the German investor is also a shareholder of another Russian Internet project.
Source: Vedomosti (http://www.vedomosti.ru)
Although the Russian e-commerce market is comparatively small, estimated as a few million dollars per month, modern Internet payment systems are blooming. About 15 systems are competing in the growing market. Reasons are small penetration of traditional payment tools (cards, cheques, private bank accounts), and a fear of fraud which demands something more secure than bare credit card schemes. One of the top Russian e-payment players is Paycash, with a system of digital cash. The St. Petersburg based Alkor Holding has rights to the Paycash technology. The system started working as a pilot project in 1998, with an industrial version launched at the end of 2000. Currently, the system has about 200 e-shops connected, covering most of significant Russian e-commerce merchants. They offer a wide range of goods like books, CDs, software, etc. Services of ISPs, IP-phone, paging, insurance and Internet-casinos are also included in this list. The customer base is growing rapidly, with now more than 400 transactions per day from 30 thousands of Paycash clients. Is the project successful? From some points of view, yes. The reputation of the system is good both among specialists world-wide and among current customers. The system involves as partners numerous banks and financial organizations, providing easy conversion of "real" money into the system. Along with Alkor Paycash and up to ten representative offices in Russia, there are three joint ventures operating Paycash based payment system abroad: Alkor Ukraine, NetMaks in Latvia and Cyphermint in the USA. The system is growing fast and recently raised about USD 10 million in private investments.
Source: Paycash (http://www.paycash.ru)
RosBusinessConsulting agency (RBC) and AltaVista company signed a partnership agreement according to that RBC will represent AltaVista in Russia. AltaVista's business model in Russia is selling corporate solutions - searching engines. It's different from a model of Lycos that set up a Russian rep office last summer to build Internet portals. AltaVista is well-known to the Internet users as a global search system. Now AltaVista's search engine could be used in corporate sites and incorporated in other information systems. Experts of RBC and AltaVista adopted English language solution and now the AltaVista's system can provide a search using a morphology of the Russian language.
Source: Netoscope (http://www.netoscope.ru)
On the last week of September the Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma signed the decree "On some measures on security of the governmental information resources in data transmission networks". As the UAtop protal reported the decree aim is "to raise security level of the governmental information resources in data transmission networks and to provide informational security of the state". According to the decree the Ukrainian government should in four month period develop a plan of connecting the state organizations "to foreign and international networks of data transmission, including the Internet". Those organizations should include the governmental agencies, enterprises and the state organizations that are dealing with the information which is a subject of the state property and protected by the law. The state authorities like the Ukrainian ministry cabinet are also listed. The decree outlined that operators provided Internet access to the named organizations will be selected exclusively by the State Communications and Informatization Committee.
Source: Netoscope
(http://www.netoscope.ru/news/2001/10/01/3584.html)
RU-Center company, a successor of RosNIIROS for domain registration, has announced domain name registration service in the .su zone. The company representatives confirmed to Netoscope that RU-Center has become the first organization announcing partnership with the Internet Development Fund. It was the Internet Development Fund that recently http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=5682 proclaimed a renaissance of the Soviet domain zone. According to the information distributed by RU-Center the registration price will be the same as recommended by the Internet Development Fund, e.g. USD 15,000. By March 2002 it will be reduced to USD 100. Reminder: the Internet Development Fund declared the .su domain development project together with RosNIIROS. That is why exactly RU-Center as the first and major registrar of the new domains was expected.
Source: Netoscope
(http://www.netoscope.ru/news/2001/10/01/3581.html)
RosNIIROS and the Internet Development Fund have announced a joint project to develop the .su zone. The former USSR zone was started in 1990 and its domains were registered until 1995. Before 1993 the .su zone was supported by Relcom and Demos. Then its technical administration was transferred to RosNIIROS. The Internet Development Fund was established by Relcom-DS and Demos-Internet in 2000. The Fund aim is to solve problems typical for local Internet communities of the former USSR. Domains in the .su zone will be available to all registrators operating in the former USSR territory from October 01 2001. Surprisingly, at the first period the registration will be priced at USD 15 thousands. In five months the price will be reduced to USD 100. A high price is a protection from cybersquatting.
Source: Netoscope (http://www.netoscope.ru)
One of the leading diversified Russian holding Sistema acquired 40% of Moscow telephone company Telmos from Rostelecom. The deal amount is over USD 17 million. Rostelecom will keep 20% of Telmos, the same stake as it had before the spring of 2001 when Rostelecom bought out 40% of Telmos from AT&T. MGTS (Moscow City Telephone Net, that is also under control of Sistema) owns another 40% of Telmos. Acquisition of Telmos is related to Sistema's plans to consolidate its telecommunication assets and build up a leading Moscow telephone operator based on Sistema's subsidiaries MTU-Inform, Comstar and Telmos. Just few days before Sistema merged two its ISP assets - MTU-Intel and PTT-Teleport. The deal will enhance Sistema's position in its long term competition with another largest Russian telecom holding Svyazinvest that owns Rostelecom. Sistema and Svyazinvest are also competing in mobile phone service segment.
Source:
Vedomosti (http://www.vedomosti.ru) and Netoscope (http://www.netoscope.ru)
On September 18 2001 two large Russian ISPs MTU-Inform and PTT-Teleport announced their merger. The deal of the companies that both belong to the Systema-Telecom holding was being predicted from the last year. MTU-Inform acquires 100% of PTT-Teleport. The new company will keep MTU-Inform name. In August 2001 the ISPs jointly launched a new 1 Gbit/sec backbone. The same month the Russian Ministry on Antimonopoly Policy permitted the companies to merge. The new MTU-Inform company will have 300 thousand dial-up customer base from the old MTU-Inform and three thousands of leased line clients of Tochka.ru (point.ru) service provided by PTT-Teleport. The deal is the second largest merger in the Russian ISP market after acquisition of Cityline by Golden Telecom.
Source: Netoscope
(http://www.netoscope.ru/news/2001/09/18/3462.html)
On July 16 2001 the Chechen Republic was connected to the Internet. The central server was installed in the building of the government of the republic, which is situated in Grozny, the republic capital. Employees of the republican Ministry of Finance became the first official Internet users in the Chechen Republic. Also in the near future it is planned to connect to the Internet the University of Grozny. As ITAR-TASS informs the Chechen Republic was the last region of Russia where there was no access to the global computer network. It is not known if the opening of any official projects of the legal government of the Chechen Republic will follow that event. But it is known that representatives of the Chechen opposition actively use the Internet in the propaganda purposes not the first year. But the well-known site Kavkaz.org, which supports Chechen insurgents, has hosting in the USA territory. Source: Netoscope (http://www.netoscope.ru/news/2001/07/17/2918.html)
On July 17 the eHouse Internet holding that already owns 11 on-line shops and a delivery service in Russia has declared acquisition of the Manifest Internet advertising agency. With Manifest the eHouse also buys a technology of banner exchange BannerBank. eHouse Holding was initiator of the deal. Vladislav Ulendeev, the executive director of eHouse, answering the question why Manifest was chosen among advertising agencies said: "Because others don't have BannerBank". On a question what eHouse is buying - people or technology, Vladislav Ulendeev has answered: "The technology, the company, the people - in approximately such a sequence". BannerBank is a brand known enough in the Russian Internet. On a basis of the same technology a set of various banner networks is constructed. The scheme of work of agency is simple - on basis of the BannerBank any interested person has possibility to make a network, which will be hosted on servers of the agency. According to the agreement, Manifest will be engaged exclusively in sale of the spaces on sites of eHouse and also to carry out advertising campaigns of the holding in the Internet. Leaders of eHouse consider the acquisition both as a way of promotion of electronic shops existing within the bounds of holding and as a separate business. According to a communique of eHouse leaders, this bargain is the beginning of actions of the holding "to gain a leading position in the market of on-line advertising".
Source: Netoscope
(http://www.netoscope.ru/news/2001/07/17/2919.html)
On Friday, May 11, 2001 Golden Telecom Inc. has announced that its main shareholder Global TeleSystems Inc. had finished the sale of 12.2 million of Golden Telecom shares that makes fifty per cent of the company. The buyer as it was announced before became Russian Alfa Group consortium in cooperation with investment funds, being under management of Baring Vostok Capital Partners (Baring Vostok) and Capital International Global Emerging Markets Private Equity Fund, L.P. (Capital). The deal price was USD 10.25 per share and at the same day some deals at NASDAQ were held at an average price USD 9.5 per share (Nasdaq: GLDN). As an addition to fourty three per cent of shares Alfa Group got three places of nine at the council of Directors. Other investors just increased their share in capital. From the moment of the company creation in 1999 its shares have been through raises and sudden falls. In April, 2000 at the moment of NASDAQ highest splash, company's shares were quoted almost at USD 50 per share, at the beginning of year 2001 fell at almost USD 5 per share. Starting at the middle of January, 2001 the company value is quite stable. It's no surprise that Global TeleSystems Inc. has chosen this time for realization of quite complicated investment object that is pursuing his own aggressive investment policy. Besides its own provider's business Golden Telecom invested USD 25 million to content direction representatives. And foreign investors are very skeptical about this direction that will make the forecasts on Golden Telecom worse and as follows on Global TeleSystems as well. One of Golden Telecom shareholders is Baring Vostok that invests into ru-NetHoldings at the same time.
Source: iOne (http://www.iOne.ru)
"We had long and serious preparations to this event",- said FBTP director Mikhail Fradkov. The site is for different users - starting with curious citizens that are interested why was FBTP created, what are its aims and objectives, ending with those who think of becoming a tax policeman. Last can get the information on the terms of employment to FBTP and educational institutions for future policemen. The site has fourteen sections. The most interesting ones are two of them: "Wanted" and "Feedback". The first represents photographs of citizens that are wanted for not paying taxes. The police expects that Internet users will help to find criminals. However, taxpayers can help FBTP in some other cases. For example, to alarm tax policemen of the crimes to be committed and to inform the police of the names of executors. To do that one has to choose the "Feedback" section and to send an e-mail to FBTP. The e-mail can also be used to ask questions to FBTP. Source: Netoscope (http://www.netoscope.ru) Federal Bureau of Tax Police, http://www.fsnp.gov.ru
On May 14, 2001 a presentation of a project "iOne, or alone around the world" was held. Its goal is to show what technologies and business organization models do the leading foreign companies use and how can these technologies and models be adopted to Russian conditions. For this purpose the main hero of the project Iwan is to go on eighty-days world tour. Iwan is to visit Germany, Denmark, France, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa, the USA, Japan, India and Arabian Emirates. He plans to interview the officials of such companies as Apple, Audi, 3M, Columbus IT Partner, Ford, IBM, Intel, Motorola, Nokian Tyres, Novell, NTT DoCoMo, Oracle, Panasonic, ParallelGraphics, Renault, SAP, SAS, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Sun, Valio, the directors of the Center of strategic development of Accenture company and Dubai Internet city, the professors of Kayo University and also to the Foreign commerce Minister of Finland and to the Minister of education of Japan. Iwan's diary is to be published daily at iOne site. Weekly on Fridays at the pages of «Kommersant» newspaper there will appear reports and interviews taken by Iwan. The research is the continuation of «Kommersant» publishing and Accenture company project named iOne. It was created as the research and experiment series targeted to find out new technologies (Internet in particular) and new business models that can be used by Russian companies and their clients, and the problems to be solved to use these opportunities fully. The first step was three-week experiment iOne or «Home alone» that was held in November-December, 2000 and supposed to place the person not aquainted to computer technologies to an absolutely empty apartment where there was only a computer logged on to Internet.
Source: iOne (www.iOne.ru)
The Saint Petersburg Information company has announced the opening of the first call-center at the Northwest of Russia. Such centers started appearing in Moscow about a year ago as parts of information services of the leading telecommunication operators. Further some of them started to offer commercial service, but this business is not wide spread all over Russia yet, while in the USA at the end of 2000 there were more than 65 thousand of call-centers that conducted around 70 per cent of all business contacts. As the CEO of Saint Petersburg information company, Sergey Artamonov, has noticed, the enterprise is a part of Telecominvest Group and starting from 1999 supports the information service "075". The experience together with three million USD investments allowed the company to start a new commercial project. There are some service centers at Saint Petersburg market that use some elements of call-centers, but none of them can integrate incoming telephone and Internet calls processing. Moreover, the new center possesses one of the most complete call-processing infrastructures: in particular, it is equipped with 180 telephone lines that are served by 300 operators. The capability of the system allows increasing the number of operators up to several thousands. Its core is ÀÒÑ Avaya Definity ECS set with Call Center Elite software. The system is able to carry out the effective incoming calls analysis, to recognize constant clients and launch appropriate business-applications, including entirely oriented on automatic interaction with the client through tone dial. All incoming calls not proceeded are redirected to operators that are responsible for certain information. New center is to provide information support of Telecominvest Group clients first of all, and besides those companies that would like to use its base for outer service of technical and marketing support, tickets booking systems, TV-voting and other services could use the opportunity. On the words of the director of Avaya Communications St.Petersburg department Yuri Pesnya, last year there were created more than a thousand call-centers, or contact centers, in Eastern Europe. For example, some Baltic countries have special companies that work for large western companies. Incoming local calls from European cities thus may be redirected to the center that can be located in the other state. Now Russia besides the off-shore programming is facing an opportunity of organizing some kind of off-shore telephone and Internet service centers.
Source: PC Week/RE (http://www.pcweek.ru/news.asp?ID=5924)
Web design department of Peterlink internet service provider now became a separate company Peterlink.Web of the holding. Peterlink-Holding was created in August 1998 when Peterlink bought Rkom and Internet-Shop providers. In autumn, 1999 holding created Internet club Planet Internet. According to the company Peterlink.Web employs around 20 specialists. During its existence company performed about a hundred web-projects, on average four to five a month. About seven hundred clients use web-hosting service and the number is increasing monthly at fifty units. According to Alexander Listvinsky, CEO and owner of a company, his companies will invest the development of a widerange access. It is planned also to open a telephone client support center. Peterlink.Web is now developing a concept of a city information portal. Source: Delovaya panorama, February 28, 2001 http://www.sotovik.ru/news/sbs000958.htm
Moscow based company Resident has opened a map service eAtlas. The site performs maps of Moscow, Saint-Petersburg (detailed up to a certain home number and a possibility to search on address), and Russia in a whole. Content and style of the atlas remind of a newly opened site "NaKarte.Ru" of Rambler Internet Holding, but there are some differences. When choosing an object at eAtlas the map redrawing is automatical. Besides the map of Saint Petersburg is detailed to a house that is only planned at "NaKarte.Ru", but there is no tourist map of Mediterranean or world map at eAtlas. eAtlas further plans concern creation of interactive map of Kiev (Ukraine) and of the world. Standard web browser with virtual Java machine is required to work with the site. For the site creation the materials of Geocenter-Consulting company and the Center of geoinformational research (Saint Petersburg) were used.
Source: PCWeek, March 1, 2001,
http://www.pcweek.ru/news.asp?ID=5598
The opening of "Leningradsky Rock Club" official site is timed to the twentieth anniversary of the club - the heart of Russian rock music located in St. Petersburg. An official site of the "Leningradsky Rock Club" was opened. As one of the authors of the project, Yuri Chernyshevsky, told, the idea of its creation has appeared long ago, but the volume and divergence of materials made it impossible. The site was opened on March 7, 2001 and was timed to club's twentieth anniversary. In creation of the site except Mr. Chernyshevsky that is in charge of work with archives, concept and design took part Nikolay Mikhailov, the president of the club. Now in operation is put the "historical part" of the resource only: site presents descriptions of famous Leningradsky Rock-Club festivals, "Memorial" page devoted to domestic rock-musicians that are already dead, their photos and even mp3 files. As Mr. Chernyshevsky said, "not everything is perfect yet". Now it is only a draft that is to be changed considering users' opinion and requires. Up to March, 10 2001 almost all of the pages will work, and the rest of the pages - not later than in the middle of April, 2001. The "Rock-Club" itself is still situated at Rubinsteina str., 13, but as Mr. Chernyshevsky said, the war with the city council that wants to get rid of the club is still going on and now the city council is slightly winning. But though, as Mr. Chernyshevsky said, regardless of the battle, the virtual part of "Rock-Club" history is natural and essential.
Source: Internet.ru,
http://internet.ru/article/lentanews/2001/03/06/5245.html
On March 6, 2001 the head of Russian Government Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signed a regulation "On changes and amendments introduction to traffic regulation of Russian Federation". By this regulation a paragraph 2.7 ("The driver is prohibited to:…") was amended, among the additions there was a point, saying, that: - while driving the driver is prohibited to use mobile phone not equipped with hands-free device. So Russia as well as many other countries now restricted drivers on mobile phone use. But though restricted, not prohibited, like for example in some European countries. The initiator of these restriction implementation was the Moscow Government in the beginning of 2001. Source: Adaily, http://adaily.ru/news.asp?ID=5530
Representative office of PayCash Internet payment system in Kiev (Ukraine) reported first results of recently started operation of the system in Ukraine. February 19 2001 the office launched Paycash Ukraine segment in demonstration regime. Every day 200 accounts has been opened there, which is a large amount for such fresh e-commerce market as Ukraine. Similar results are expected form launch of Latvian segment due to April 2001. During the year 2000, business activity of the Russian market and related exCIS markets of e-payments has been increased dramatically. Particularly, Internet payment system PayCash developing proprietary digital cash/prepaid cards technology reported tenfold growth of user activity after May 2000, highest on the market. On the press conference that taken place in the business center "Daev Plaza" in December 7, 2000 Paycash officials announced about placing in operation of the new "industrial" version of the system. This event, together with fresh USD 10 million investment in the project by state-associated industrial-financial corporation "Aerospace devices" gave a huge boost to project activities. Next version is due to release in April 2001, with new user interface designed by US company. Along with regional activity, an active work in promotion of the PayCash system on the world markets continues. Behind exCIS activities, "Cyphermint,Inc.", US-based company purchased in 2000 all rights on using PayCash technology over the world except the CIS started operations. First contract for Paycash system installation in US was signed with bidz.com, a large auction house. Due to poor level of "traditional" payment technologies, Russian companies are inevitable working hard on hi-tech money transferring systems. In regional market Paycash competes fiercely with other digital money technologies, such as Webmoney. Due to low credit card penetration rate, Russian market share of digital money in on-line Internet payments is unusually high, estimated as 15 per cent again 70 per cent for credit card-based payments, comparing 98 per cent credit card based payments in US.
PayCash, http://www.paycash.ru
In the middle of February 2001 a new site "Russian bioinformatics and biotechnologies" was opened, and it reports the latest achievements of Russian science in bioinformatics, genetics, molecular biology and biochemistry. As the authors of the project say the site will work in a format of scientific "free online journal". The site consists of three main sections: "For beginners", "For specialists" and "For Investors". The first shows popular info on biotech. Specialists are suggested to send their articles and research to place at the site. Developers of the site mark that among scientists today it is normal to give links to information, received by Internet. The aim of investors section is to give businessmen interested in biotech the main definitions and general impression on biotech research prospective. The design was made by the laboratory of visual mechanics from Ekaterinburg.
Source: Internet.ru, http://internet.ru/article/lentanews/2001/02/20/5109.html
The Internet has been one of the last frontiers unconquered by Russia's galling government regulations, but that may soon change.During its spring session, the national parliament (known as the State Duma) is gearing up to consider as many as 15 bills to regulate the Internet, said a Duma official. "We need to manage our online relationships," said Yury Travkin, a consultant to the Duma's commission on information policy, in a telephone interview. "It is important for Russia to regulate its Internet if it wants to be serious about entering into the WTO [World Trade Organization]." While Travkin declined to list all the pending bills because committees are still massaging the drafts into shape, he said the package will most likely contain provisions banning commercial spam, or junk e-mail, protecting intellectual property, preventing copyright infringement, securing online payments and addressing the legitimacy of digital signatures. A bill that is likely to draw fire from defendants of free speech stipulates that all Internet publications need to register with the Communications Ministry if they want to be considered members of the mass media. Dmitry Itskovich, who runs the news and information site Polit.ru, said in a telephone interview that this bill had raised more fears than many online news organizations felt were justified. Many of the organizations had already voluntarily registered with the ministry not only in order to qualify for tax breaks available to the media, but also to be officially recognized, he said. "I don't think online publications should be treated any differently than other media," Itskovich added. Other bills seem more likely to kill, rather than foster, the virtual domains deputies wish to regulate. The nationally prominent daily newspaper "Segodnya" reported that the Duma's economic policy committee has recommended that only officially registered, self-employed business people be able to shop in Internet stores. From a legal perspective, the proposed regulations will assist Russian companies blazing the trails of electronic commerce, said Timofei Kotenev, an e-commerce specialist at law firm Lovells. "This will create one legal base and give a green light to the development of online commerce on Russia," said Kotenev, adding that since the Internet knows no national boundaries, the Duma should be sure the bills are written according to international standards. While he welcomes the government's involvement as long as it facilitates the growth of the Internet, Kotenev warns some regulations may go too far. For instance, he said, under the proposed bills, companies that want to use digital signatures for legally-binding contracts will have to register with the Federal Communications and Information Agency - a move that could lead to privacy abuses. Adversaries of government control over the World Wide Web can easily justify their apprehensions. The ex-KGB, now called the Federal Security Service, or FSB, already monitors e-mails and other Internet communications though a program named SORM, or System for Operational-Investigative Activities. The FSB claims the program helps catch cyber criminals, terrorists, and spies. SORM requires security services to obtain a warrant prior to looking at electronic transmissions, but critics argue the FSB can simply ignore the rules. Ignoring existing rules is precisely the problem, according to Tom Adshead, an Internet and telecom analyst at Troika Dialog. "There are a bunch of existing laws that are totally ignored, so all they have to do is apply them to the Internet and use the legal system to enforce them." Adshead said the main stumbling blocks to the widespread acceptance of the Internet in Russia is not the lack of applicable laws. "What's holding the growth of the Internet here is the fact that people don't have the money to buy computers, and I don't see that changing any time soon," he said. The number of computer users in Russia doubled last year to an estimated 3 million, which is still less than 2 percent of the population, Adshead said. IDC, formerly International Data Corporation, forecasts there will be a total of 9.4 million Internet users in Russia by 2004.
Source: Internetnews,
http://www.internetnews.com
A marketing action of Russian representation of Hewlett-Packard ("Shop-in-Shop"), in the frameworks of which the leading e-shops created special HP departments, is followed by a scandal. There was an information at the market that the e-shops share their clients profile with HP. The action was also criticized by eHouse holding that refused to sign a contract with HP. A new project of HP started on February 7 2001. For e-shops the priority was in terms of delivery and in advertisement on hp.ru site. Not long ago at RICN site there was an open letter after Andrey Panchenko about HP's requirement to the shops of a full client's profile a personal data that a buyer gives to a shop on a purchase registration. in practice almost every e-shop guarantees data security, so this side of HP's contract with its partners on Shop-in-Shop is quite doubtful. But this fact was not denied by HP in followed comments. HP's partners today are such Internet shops as www.depo.ru, www.image.ru, www.intershop.ru, www.computerplaza.ru and www.whitewind.ru. But eHouse holding shops refused to take part in this action. Vladislav Ulendeev, ehouse CEO, shared his opinion in chat at InfoBusiness site. He said: "We refused to sign a contract with HP. I am sorry that such people of respect as Depo.ru, Computerplaza.ru and White Wind signed this stuff. I'm afraid this can have a strong influence on all of e-shops, not only those who decided to play dirty games". These dirty games were mentioned in Panchenko's letter Wstore.ru, a shop of eHouse holding, was working close with HP, but then its employees were caught read-handed with an agreement to HP's employees to share black money. In the same chat Ulendeev said that all the employees involved in this scandal were fired on January 10, 2001. It is quite obvious from the chat conversation that not only the black money were the reason of refuse, but also the requirement to share the client s profile with HP. Marina Tyschenko, a supervisor of "Shop-in-Shop" project in HP, answered with a regret about Ulendeev's "not quite correct behaviour". According to her words all changes in companies' mutual relations if they exist concern changes in the volume of business only. In her interview to Netoscope Marina Tyschenko informed that in the contract to marketplaces coming into "Shop-in-Shop" there is only a point about a name which is used by a client to register a purchase and a purchase volume, but not about addresses, or phone numbers. "A company such as Hewlett-Packard can not afford to break Russian laws", - marked Marina Tyschenko. As Oleg Starkov, Computerplaza.ru Director, said: "Nobody has asked us to provide such data, we did not give it to anyone and are not intended to". "We provide HP with statistics on number of goods sold, sells volume per one client, on site statistics and HP Shop," - said Elena Gringaut, PR and advertisement manager of Depo.ru. "But this is not a personal clients profile". So participants of the action did not confirm the facts, mentioned by Panchenko and Ulendeev. Nevertheless, different banner nets and Subscribe.ru still show the banner with a text Hewlett-Packard's criminal business in Russia that is linked to the article mentioned above, published at RICN. It is hard to say whether it is black PR or RICN advertising campaign. Yaroslav Grekov, the owner of RICN, says that he doesn t know much about the banner origin. Marina Tyschenko refused to comment possible target of this action, and marked that she would never say a word on the point not having juridical evidence. She also refused to comment black money info.
Source: Netoscope,
http://www.netoscope.ru/news/2001/02/21/1589.html
The new phase in development in Russian Internet marketing: the leading Russian agency Promo.Ru becomes part of the Central European online marketing network of red-stars.com.data AG Moscow, February 7, 2001 - red-stars.com data AG and Promo.ru announce a deal where red-stars.com acquires a controlling stake in Promo.ru. This deal will bring significant advantages to both parties and is expected to grow the Russian Internet advertising market. This deal is a part of concentrated efforts of red-stars.com to actively expand its operations in Emerging Europe. red-stars.com AG, a private e-business company with its headquarters in Vienna, was established in March 2000. Since its establishment, red-stars.com has invested in a range of profitable companies with high growth potential in its focus areas: online marketing, e-solutions and specialized platforms. It is still the only European company that exclusively operates in these fast growing markets. "This transaction is another proof of our dedication to execute our strategy quickly and achieve and maintain leadership position in online marketing in the region," said Neslihan Baykal, director of online marketing business unit at red-stars.com headquarters. Experts expect online marketing in Russia to grow from five - six million USD in 2000 to 16 million USD in 2001 and to over 100 million USD in 2005. These figures are above the Emerging Europe average in terms of size and growth. Acquiring a controlling stake in one of the leading Internet marketing companies in Russia will make red-stars.com a major player also in this important market. With this deal, red-stars.com will reach approximately twenty five per cent market share in Russian online marketing. Just before completing the deal with Promo, red-stars.com acquired a 55 per cent stake in Telnet, the leading Hungarian Internet marketing company and is currently enjoying 25 per cent market share also in Hungary. Timofey Bokarev, the general director of Promo.ru, says that times have changed. "For the past six months, investors have been in the process of reassessing the value of Internet businesses and are now more selective in their choices of companies. The companies that generate real business and revenues, add measurable value to their customers, and are reliable and profitable for the investors will benefit most from this new market dynamic. Promo is one of the few companies in the Russian Internet sector that meet these tough criteria," - concluded Timofey. Promo.ru, the first Russian Internet agency founded in 1997 by Timofey Bokarev, is now one of the leading online marketing agencies in Russia. The company started operations with one person in 1997 and it currently employs 18 people. It showed steady growth and managed to maintain a leadership position since its foundation. This deal will provide Promo not only with the additional financial resources but also with experience and know-how within the red-stars network, lower cost structure resulting from shared product development and technology and expanded customer base due to network connections.
Source: Promo.ru Press-release, February 8 2001
(http://www.promo.ru)
A special department is created at the Central Bank of Russian Federation (CBRF) for supervision of banking operations in Internet and is to study a problem of banking e-commerce and to work out a legal base for that purpose. Internet-banking service in Russia are provided by very few banks, among them - Avtobank that started providing this kind of service for its clients in 1998, Guta-Bank, Menatep St. Petersburg. On the words of a Director of distant service department of Guta-Bank Andrey Vanin now it is hard to make a conclusion about a sphere of interest of a new department of CBRF. It is not quite clear yet are the employees of the department going to work out the legal base for Internet-banking only, or other kinds of electronic service - e.g. telephone banking, Internet-trading or Internet-acquiring - as well. On Mr. Vanin's opinion this would be the most reasonable thing, because today about 90% of banks in Russia provide the electronic service. Besides, it would not be the best decision if the legal description of Internet-banking is to be followed by a necessity of special licensing of the service. Internet service lets banks to attract mass client and make the service provided much cheaper on the reason that it helps the competition between the market participants. In case CBRF demands each to get the license, the competition will decrease and prices will rise.
Sources: Internet.ru
(http://internet.ru)
The company has announced the opening of the first professional Web-hosting center in St. Petersburg. January 14 2001 Rostelecom has announced its intention to "change the situation at St. Petersburg Internet-service market". A territorial center of long distance communications and television - that is how all regional departments of Rostelecom are called - has opened in St. Petersburg "the first professional center of Web-hosting" Hostway.ru. it was operating in test mode since November 2000, and on January 2001 the commercial use of the project has started. Hostway.ru has a priority - its throughput facility is 100 Mbit per second. On the words of Andrey Kuzhnetsov, a chief of a communication service department, Hostway.ru is to be in demand of big companies that have intentions to keep a great volume of information in Internet (e.g. Net media). But as Mr. Kuzhnetsov marked, any interested is free to address Hostway.ru for simple web site support. Kuzhnetsov mentioned as well that a creation of a center alike Hostway.ru in Moscow is being planned yet. And the creation of web-hosting centers in other 17 regional territorial centers of long distance communications and television is not even planned.
Source: Internet.ru
(http://internet.ru/article/lentanews/2001/01/15/4833.html)
The Eastman Kodak Company claimed an entrepreneur Alexander Grundul on three different cases (illegal use of "Kodak" trade mark, dishonest competition and brand name rights violation) more than two years ago (in 1998), the case was inspected in different courts since then and a decisions were not clear and final. And finally on January 16 2001 the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Referees (SCR) of the Russian Federation has satisfied a protest of a Vice Chairman of the SCR Mr. Isaytchev under the claim of Eastman Kodak Company to Mr. Grundul (the third side - the Russian Institute for Public networks, RIPN) to prohibit use of Kodak trade mark in a domain name of a respondent and carried out a decision to cancel previous decisions of three instances on the case and to proceed with the case. In the case inspection under a chairs of the SCR Chairman Yakovlev took part representatives of a claimant - Eastman Kodak Company (representatives on Warrant of Attorney (WA) a lawyer Yuri Vatskovsky and a member of the St. Petersburg Patent Association Victor Naumov), the respondent - the entrepreneur Alexander Grundul (a representative on WA - a patent trustee A. Selivanovsky), a third side - a representative on WA, a lawyer, jurist-consult of RIPN E. Gertseva. We have to mark that the Supreme Court of Referees has only cancelled the decisions on the claim on the trade mark rights violation. Other cases on two other claims (the dishonest competition and the brand name rights violation) proceed and new decisions are getting closer to a common sence. The claim on Kodak trade mark rights violation by Grundul was one of the first submitted and before the inspection in the Supreme Court of Referees it was declined in three instances already. The court recommended to take into account recommendations of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on domain names claim inspection during the further procedure of this case, and in particular, to find out if the actions of Grundul are scrupulous. The Presidium of the Supreme Court of Referees has turned out to be more categorical than the Federal Institute of Industrial Property, that, according to the words of leading patent expert L. Kiriy is only "...coming to a conclusion on a necessity of development of special international regulations to control Internet business and also to make national legislation more effective". Internet is still a self-regulating system, and even Russian courts will have to admit an expediency of business turn, accepted in WIPO recommendations. Let's mark that this is the first decision of Russian court on Internet.
Sources: Russian Law (http://www.russianlaw.net)
At the end of December 2000 the distributor company CPS (Center of Personal Software) has announced the results of a contest "Russian product of the year". In "Russian bestseller" nomination (the winner was defined under the objective data of CPS trade system) the best was ABBYY Finereader 5.0 text recognition system. The sells of the product exceed at 10 per cent the parameters of the nearest competitor. In "Dealers' sympathies Prize" nomination (the winner was defined under the inquest of nearly 500 dealers of CPS) the winner was "Kaspersky Antivirus" that won the same magic 10 per cent. Marketing manager of CPS Elena Avilova told that the action "Russian product of the year" was viewing the most popular developments of eight native producers that are not relied to multimedia programs.
Source: PCWeek/RE (http://www.pcweek.ru/news.asp?ID=5162)
The company has opened a site in frames of Eurasian patent organization Triumvirat Development company has opened the site of Belarus State patent Committee. The resource is not a separate project but a part of a general order that the company has received from Eurasian patent organization. The necessity of forming the EPO has occurred after USSR desintegration when the united patent space was broken and legal relations were under threat. The organization was being created for quite a long time - the first members had appeared in 1995 only. Now the EPO unites nine states: Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tadzhikistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaidzhan, Armenia and Moldova. Belarus site is seventh already. The design is equal to those opened before by the Patent organizations of the countries - former USSR members. It represents the information on industrial property objects protection, the history of committee development, the list of patent confided, legal base and contact info. The section "Taxes" reminds that the registration of patent or trade mark is not cheap at all. Commercial Director of Triumvirat Development Vladimir Zyablov told that EPO site was opened by the company in 1997 and the cooperation proceeds till now. The next turn is Moldova site. The work on it is already going. Russia was the exception - Mr. Zyablov made it clear that Triumvirat is not going to work with Rospatent because the relations with this department are very complicated. Besides Rospatent is represented in the Net for quite a long time already. Moreover in the frameworks of EPO cooperation Triumvirat had an advertising campaign of the organization in Internet. The most interesting fact is that Russian agency managed to involve to the campaign one of the leaders of international net marketing - DoubleClick Inc. Mr. Zyablov has assured that Triumvirat - is the only partner of DoubleClick in Russia.
Source: Internet.ru
(http://internet.ru/article/lentanews/2001/01/12/4826.html)
According to MFD-InfoCenter data the company Alfa-Eco that was into oil, metallurgic, sugar and alcohol business before is to create a telecommunication department. The director of the branch is Stanislav Shekshnya that was the head of Russian office of MillicomInternationalCellular - the owner of 12 cellular operators in Russia (working basically in AMPS standard). The Technical director position has got Nikolai Mikhin that in past was the chief expert of Telenor company, a big shareholder of VympelCom. The first purchase of the company is to be 25% of VympelCom JSC and 51% of its 100% daughter VympelCom-R SC.
Source: AtoniNews, Integrum Techno (http://www.integrum.ru)
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