20 Facts About Yandex

Yandex LLC is a Russian multinational technology company providing Internet-related products and services, including an Internet search engine, information services, e-commerce, transportation, maps and navigation, mobile applications, and online advertising.

In 2000, Yandex was incorporated as a standalone company by Arkady Volozh.

In 1998, Yandex launched contextual advertisement on its search engine.

In 2007, Yandex introduced a customized search engine for Ukrainian users; Yandex opened its development center in Kyiv in May 2007.

In 2008, Yandex extended its presence in Ukraine by increasing bandwidth between Moscow data centers and UA-IX in Ukraine fivefold.

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In 2010, Yandex launched its "Poltava" search engine algorithm for Ukrainian users, based on its MatrixNet technology.

In 2022, TechCrunch reported that Yandex was selling its media division after the EU sanctioned the former head of its news operation, Lev Gershenzon.

The CNN reported in March 2022 that Yandex warned it may not be able to pay its debts due to sanctions imposed on Russia.

In September 2010, Yandex launched Yandex Music, a music streaming service, with a catalogue of 800, 000 tracks from 58, 000 performers.

On February 7, 2018, Uber and Yandex NV merged their businesses in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus and Georgia.

In May 2018, Sberbank and Yandex completed a joint venture deal to develop a B2C eCommerce ecosystem.

In January 2022, Yandex acquired "eLama", digital advertising platform, waiting for the approvement from Federal Antimonopoly Service.

In 2013, Yandex became the largest media property in Russia by revenue.

On June 1, 2017, Yandex closed its offices in Kyiv and Odessa, Ukraine after the Security Service of Ukraine raided the offices and accused the company of illegally collecting Ukrainian users' data and sending it to Russian security agencies.

In October and November 2018, Yandex was targeted in a cyberattack using the Regin malware, aimed at stealing technical information from its research and development unit on how users were authenticated.

In June 2019, RBC News reported that Yandex had refused a request by the Russian Federal Security Service under the Yarovaya law to surrender encryption keys that could decrypt the private data of its e-mail service and cloud storage users.

Yandex argued that it was impossible to comply with the relevant law without compromising its users' privacy.

In late March 2022, Yandex was the subject of a Financial Times investigation that had been initiated by the nonprofit organization Me2B Alliance as part of an application auditing campaign led by researcher Zach Edwards.

Edwards and four expert researchers, including Cher Scarlett, a former Apple security engineer, found that a software development kit called AppMetrica, a product of Yandex, was harvesting data from more than 52, 000 applications such as a user's device fingerprint and IP address and storing it in Russia on Yandex's servers, which they said due to Russian law, and the nature of SDKs, could be accessed by Russian authorities without their knowledge and used to identify them.

Yandex said of identification by the data collected: "Although theoretically possible, in practice it is extremely hard to identify users based solely on such information collected.