User:Abdalevg97/The history of the russian internet

Russian internet(runet) is part of Internet sites with main content in Russian. According to data from August 2019, according to studies conducted by W3Techs, 6.5% of the 10 million most popular Internet sites in the world use Russian. In 2013, according to these studies, the Russian language became the second most popular on the Internet after English (more than 50%).

Foundation of the Russian Internet

Sovam Teleport

Sovam Teleport is a russian telecommunications company, that was founded in 1990. The company was established as a joint venture of the San Francisco Moscow Teleport network and the All-Russian Research Institute of Automated Application Systems(ВНИИПАС). The name comes from short Soviet-American Teleport.

San Francisco Moscow Teleport (SFMT) was launched in 1983 by financier George Soros and other American investors with the support of the US government as a non-profit project whose goal was to expand the Internet to the USSR, in 1986 the project changed its status and became a commercial enterprise. The All-Russian Research Institute of Automated Application Systems provided a data transmission network with some countries of Eastern Europe, as well as Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam, almost all of the data traffic was scientific and technical information, and in 1983 organized a non-state email network. By the beginning of the 1990s, almost half of the VNII traffic amounted to operational data from electronic mail systems; its own mail and teleconferencing system ADONIS gained fame.

The company's first data network was built on X.25 protocol in 1990. In 1992, regardless of Relcom and Demos, Sovam Teleport, based on its satellite channels with X.25 protocol to California, began to build uucp mail and a terminal access system through the American server to Internet services, primarily to usenet. Among the first corporate clients of the company were Johnson & Johnson, Coca Cola, DuPont, Estee Lauder, Time magazine, France Presse agency. Since 1992, the British company Cable & Wireless, which has its own fiber-optic channels in Europe, has become the third co-founder of the company, on June 4, 1992 the company was re-registered as a limited liability partnership, all three co-founders - Cable & Wireless, All-Russian Research Institute of Automated Application Systems and SFMT - receive almost equal shares. On July 28, 1993, a communications center in Tashkent began servicing customers. The provider domain Sovam Teleport sovam.com, which opened on February 24, 1994, became the first public Internet site in Russia.

DEMOS-based network

After invading Afganistan, the Soviet Union found itself under sanctions. However, a group of developers made a Russian version of the Unix operation system, secretly brought from America, and they used it to build a network. Many Unix developers worked at the computer center of the Kurchatov Nuclear Energy Research Institute. They created a network, that connected computers, that was running on DEMOS - Unix-like operating system developed in the Soviet Union. The main value of this network that it was fully horizontal network, i.e. each network participant could directly communicate with other participants, without being segregated. Many labs took part in joint experiments, so communication was very much needed. Therefore first network users were mainly soviet research institutes of nuclear physics, so they could exchange scientific information more rapidly. This network was first governement-independent channel with West block countries - soviet scientist had a possibility to communicate, for example, with CERN(The European Organization for Nuclear Research).

Cityline

After collapse of the Soviet Union, network technologies started to be used by public. In the beginning russian internet was basically a chatroom all in English language. After Tim Berners-Lee intoduced HTML language, the majority of russian internet users started to copy-paste Tim Berners-Lee bio-page, that was written in HTML, and insert information about themselves. Cityline - one of the first internet providers in Russia, that was founded in 1996. The founders of Cityline were Emelyan Zakharov, Demyan Kudryavcev, Egor Shuppe, Dmitriy Bosov, Rafael Filinov. The realization of the fact, that internet connection was not that appealing for russian users if there is no content in russian on the Internet, led to content-orientated services. For example, Cityline approached journalist Anton Nosik, that he would create content for them. It led to portal named 'Vechernii Internet'(Вечерний Интернет), where Anton Nosik published his articles. In addition, the very first russian web designer Artemy Lebedev, who initially worked alone in his bedroom during 36-hour work shift, developed design for Citylink. Among the most popular websites on the russian internet was Anekdot.ru, website dedicated to russian humour and fun stories. Anekdot.ru was founded by astrophysicist Dmitrii Verner.

Search engines

Rambler

In 1996 the first russian search-engine Rambler was launched. It was created by Sergey Lysakov, Dmitry Kryukov and others, who worked as a scientists in Pushchino research facility. Algorithm, that served as a basis for Rambler, initially was used for registrating and searching for microorganisms. One of the key features was so-called Rambler Top-100, that showed one hundred top searched websites on the Russian internet. In the beginning of 1999 53% Rambler market shares was sold to investors - Russian Fonds(Русские Фонды) and Orion Capital Advisors. As a result, founders of the company became less important in terms of decision making businesswise. In 2000, as a result of the conflict between investors and founders, Sergey Lysakov and Dmitry Kryukov has left the company. Rambler later bacame media company that included its own TV channel.

Yandex

In the early 90s Ilya Segalovich and Arkadii Volash developed search algorithm, that was based on the morphology of russian language. Initially this algorithm was proposed to Rambler for approximately 15K dollars, but was rejected. After rejection creators of this algorithm decided to found their own company - Yandex. Key figures on the company: Ilya Segalovich, Arkadii Volash and Elena Kolmanovskaya, editor in chief until 2012. First it was small company - employees at Yandex were friends of Arkadii Volash. Gradually Yandex became one of the leading companies on the Russian internet, now including several amount of sub-companies, Yandex.Taxi or news aggregator Yandex.News.

Social networks

mail.ru

Alexei Krivenkov created Russia's first e-mail service, while working for an American IT company. Mail.ru, that is based on a free web mail system created by Alexei Krivenkov, bacame the main asset of Port.ru, a company he co-founded with his American partner, Eugene Goland. Mail.ru was able to become the top three most visited Russian websites. In 1999, they attracted the first investment in the history of the Russian Internet - 1000000 dollars. One of the top russian businesman is Yuri Milner - billionaire, global investor, one of co-owners and chairman of Mail.ru Group in years 2001-2012. Having the degree in physics from Moscow State University, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he later retrained to become an investment banker. In 1999 Yuri Milner was looking for a project in which to invest his first capital. After studying several industries, he came accross a young and growing sector called Internet, that required minimal startup capital and had an enourmous potential. Milner raised some investment money and started a company called Netbridge. Among its first acquisitions were entertainmnent website Fomenko.ru and Herman Klimenko's web directory List.ru. Later Netbridge merged with Port.ru and was renamed after its main asset - Mail.ru. The merger was, in fact, an acquisition - briefly nobody from the old Port.ru team remained in the company. One of the new directions that appeared after merger was online gaming. Dmitry Grishin, the main integration ideologist, became Mail.ru's technical director at the age of 22, later company's CEO. He realized that people in that time in Russia weren't ready to pay for games. Therefore he came up with desicion to make games free. People would play, have fun, and then service offered players to buy something that will make them feel better.

VKontakte

VK(VKontakte) is a social network, that was founded in 2006 by Pavel Durov with the help of Russian-Israeli investors Yitzchak Mirilashvili and Lev Leviev. Nikolai Durov, elder brother of Pavel Durov and winner of multiple awards in mathematics and coding, was the lead software engineer of VKontakte. In 2010 the main office of VK was placed in Singer building in Saint-Petersburg.Soon after its launch VK gained massive attention among russian-speaking users. It was free, in the contrary to odnoklasniki.ru. In addition to being social network, it also functioned as a file sharing network: user had a possibility to upload films, music, pictures, porn content, etc. - this feature will be later restricted on the website. In 2014 Pavel Durov resigned and left Russia. On 16 September 2014, Mail.ru Group has become a sole owner of VK.

Odnoklasniki.ru

Odnoklasniki.ru is a social network, that was launched in 2006 and created by Albert Popkov. The main idea was similar to social network Classmates.com, which is to unite classmates again. As a result of losing its positions to VK, Odnoklasniki.ru focused on more mature, more provincial audience. In 2008, Popkov's former British employer sued him, claiming he'd stolen the code for Odnoklassniki.ru. Eventually, Popkov won the trial, however still lost his position as CEO. After that, access to Odnoklasniki.ru became fee-based, which badly cost Odnoklasniki.ru in the struggle with competion. Ilya Shirokov, new CEO of Odnoklasniki.ru, rebranded the network, it managed to preserve its number-two status in Russia. In order to stay relevant, company added streaming service, that enabled users to stream their own life moments to their friends.

Mail.ru Group

Mail.ru Group is a russian technological company. Among its assets: VKontakte, Odnoklassniki.ru, carsharing YouDrive, food delivery Delivery Club, etc.. In may 2017 Forbes put Mail.ru Group on 97th place out of 100 innovative companies of the world. In february 2017 russian Forbes estimated company value to be 4 billion dollars, therefore it was put on the second place out of russian internet companies. The company calls its communication development strategy communitainment (communication + entertainment) and focuses on the development of communication and entertainment Internet services. All the main assets of Mail.ru Group belong to four main lines of business:

Social networks. Mail.ru Group owns three Russian social networks: VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and My World.

Mail, portal and instant messaging. This direction includes Mail.ru Mail and the Mail.ru portal, which includes the main page of the site and thematic projects Auto Mail.ru, Cinema Mail.ru, Children Mail.ru, Health Mail.ru, Lady Mail.ru, News Mail.ru , Sport Mail.ru, Hi-Tech Mail.ru, Cars Mail.ru, Real Estate Mail.ru and Welcome Mail.ru [6], as well as instant messaging services ICQ and Agent Mail.ru.

The gaming division of Mail.ru Games develops and publishes client and browser-based massively multiplayer online games, games for social networks and mobile devices, and the gaming portal Games Mail.ru Games.

Search, e-commerce and more: this is the direction of using Mail.ru Search, the Mail.ru Goods information and reference system, available information about goods and services, their cost in various online stores, the MAPS.ME service, which carries offline maps and navigation for mobile devices based on OpenStreetMap data, the mobile service of free ads by Yula and the ridesharing service BeepCar.

Mail.ru Group is developing a direction of work in the field of Big data, which includes the creation of predictive mathematical models, conducting market research, consulting in the field of infrastructure development and methodology for working with big data. The Mail.ru brand also operates the Mail.ru platform for business, combining all B2B services of the company, a Q&A system, called Mail.ru answers and other Internet projects.

Messengers

Telegram

After leaving VKontakte, Pavel Durov founded Telegram, cross-platform messaging service. It includes general chats, secret chats, group chats, channels and chat-bots. Service is cloud-based, which means that all chats could be available on all user's devices, except for secret chat.

The main emphasis was put on anonimity and encryption. Secret chats use end-to-end encryption, where only sender and receiver have encryption key. In contrary to general chats, messages are not being decrypted on server and message history is placed solely on client devices. It is also possible to set timer for secret chat, after time is up all messages and files in this chat will be permanently deleted.

In 2018 Roskomnadzor required Pavel Durov to give access to encryption keys, otherwise Telegram will be blocked in Russia. As a response, Pavel Durov stated, that it is not possible to transfer encryption keys, as they are being created on user's device every time user connects with someone. On April 13, 2018, the Tagansky court of Moscow ruled in favor of Roskomnadzor, allowing it to block the messenger in Russia. As a response to blocking, Pavel Durov created Digital Resistance. On April 30, 2018, more than 12 thousands people gathered on Moscow streets to support Telegram. Those events increased interest in Telegram among russian users, resulting in Telegram gaining more russian users.

Russian bloggers

Livejournal

With the emergence of Facebook, LiveJournal's popularity in the United States began to wane. In Russia, it continued to grow. LiveJournal became a platform for the formation of civil society.

The first to unite were car drivers fighting against the excessive use of flashing lights on the roads. The community received the name of Blue Buckets.

Civil activist on LiveJournal were soon followed by opposition politicians. Aleksei Navalny's corruption investigations made his blog the most popular one on LiveJournal. The politician is still reffered as a blogger in pro-government media.

                    'After 2005 or 2006, when mass media had been cleaned up and there remained only a couple of [idepedent]                  newspapers, the entire political debate moved to LiveJournal' 
                    Aleksei Navalny

In 2007, LiveJournal was acquired by SUP Media, co-owned by russian businessman Aleksandr Mamut.

Spasibo, Eva

Yry Degtyaryov was one of the first content creator on YouTube. He made provacative and funny videos featuring his friend, Sam Nickel. Degtyaryov soon became a producer on RuTube, a Russian copycat of YouTube. But he didn't work there long. After he found out that YouTube would start paying for videos, he left RuTube. After that, he created Spasibo, Eva!(Thanks, Eva), platform for aspiring russian video bloggers. Among them, Ruslan Usachev, Danila Poperechny, Ilya Madisson, Ilya Prusikin and others. In 2013, hackers from the Anonymous group released internal Spasibo, Eva! emails, from which, it became known that Spasibo, Eva! bloggers were paid by the Kremlin. That was shock for the majority of Spasibo, Eva! bloggers, as they didn't know where money came from. It has been found out, that major financing source was coming from governement.

KlikKlak

After leaving Thanks, Eva!, Prusikin, Usachev and their friends founded KlikKlak, Russia's first independent community of video bloggers. Today, it's one of the biggest production companies on the Russian-language segment of YouTube. It has released more than 20 popular shows. In the beggining, they shoot their videos in the living room, gradually it became more and more professional. Nowadays in Russia there are several production teams on YouTube similar to KlikKlak, for instance Chiken Curry, Big Russian Boss. The evolution of online platforms and streaming services makes it possible to monetize and promote web content without involvment by producers or the state. For example, Yuri Dud, journalist and blogger, is gaining around 7 million rubles just with integrated advertising.

Bloggers in politics

The first Russian politician to start a channel on YouTube was Aleksei Navalny, opposition figure. His film 'He is Not Dimon To You' was released in early March 2017 and instantly started trending on YouTube. Less than a month later, on March 26, tens of thousands young people took part in street protests. It was an occasion, that never happened before. Summer of 2019, Moscow saw a new wave of mass protests: first, against not allowing independent candidates to run in local election, and then against police excesses against protesters. Russian youtubers were one of the driving forces of the Moscow protests. Danila Poperechny, Eldar Dzharakhov and Restaurateur came to St.Petersburg to take part in the rallies. Popular vlogger Nikolai Sobolev has been covering the protests and the criminal cases against demonstrators during next months. As far as russian audience on YouTube, it's now very opposition-minded, smart, analytical, interesting, forward-thinking, that can't be easily manipulated. That said, YouTube became an alternative to TV, as it's attracted an audience that want some kind of high-quality content.

Governmental control

League for a Safe Internet

Konstantin Malofeyev, founder of the League for a Safe Internet, initiatated the first restrictive Internet law in Russia. So called filtration law makes it mandatory to block websites containing harmful information: pedophilia, propaganda of suicide and so on. As Malofeyev stated, the League's main taskl was to prepare a bill to protect children from negative content. The bill was supported by Yelena Mizulina, russian politician. Russian internet leaders , including Yandex, LiveJournal and VKontakte, spoke out against the Internet filtration law, seeing in it a censorship tool. The Russian Wikipedia went on a one-day strike. After that, the Russian State Duma has since passed more than 20 laws restricting the Internet.

Yarovaya law

Two bills declared by their authors as having an anti-terrorism focus were adopted in Russia in July 2016. As far as internet restriction is concerned, the law implies two aspects:

Internet traffic storage. The bill obliges telecom operators to store calls and messages of subscribers for a period determined by the Government of the Russian Federation(but no more than 6 months).

Encryption tools. The bill establishes a ban on the use of non-certified means of encoding (encryption). For violation of this prohibition, the violator faces a fine of 3,000 to 5,000 rubles with confiscation of encryption. Also, the law obliges the organizers of the dissemination of information on the Internet to decode user messages. At the request of the FSB, companies will need to provide keys to encrypted traffic.

Sovereign Internet Act

The official law paper implies creation of independent network infrastructure, in order to maintain Internet connection in case of unavailability of foreign root servers. According to official statement, Sovereign Internet Act will increase internet security in case of cyber attack. According to experts Sovereign Internet Act will create a possibility to isolate russian segement of the Internet, in addition it could be possible to switch off Internet connection in certain russian areas. Among the public Sovereign Internet Act considered to be an instrument of censorship and control over the Internet. On march 10th, 2019 approximately 15 thousand people gathered on Sakharov Avenue to support free internet. The law was activated on November 1, 2019.