Russia Plans To Launch Sputnik Again -- This Time As A Search Engine

from the easier-said-than-done dept

Tue, Oct 15th 2013 12:54am — Glyn Moody

Techdirt has been reporting for a while the efforts of the Russian government to bring the Internet there under control. It now seems that it is taking a new approach: as well as banning or criminalizing activities it doesn't like, it wants to compete with them directly. Specifically, it plans to fund a new Russian search engine, called "Sputnik", named after the first artificial satellite, put into space by the Russians in 1957. According to an article in the news magazine "Der Spiegel" (original in German), this is designed to address two problems at once.

The first is the risk that Russia's leading search engine, Yandex, might fall into hostile hands. Yandex currently holds 60% of the Russian search engine market, and makes a healthy $400 million profit on revenue of $1 billion, and so would be a tempting target for a take-over. The danger for the Russian government is that it might go to someone hostile to their policies. In fact, Yandex has already proved something of a thorn in the Russian government's side, since it has not only supported opposition figures on several occasions, but it has the habit of linking to foreign sites that contradict the official line.

That's the second problem that Sputnik is designed to solve. The hope seems to be that in time it will become one of the main sources of information for Russians when they go online, and allow the government to ensure that no inconvenient facts are served up when they search on sensitive subjects.

Of course, it's one thing to talk about launching a search engine that will take on Yandex and Google (which currently holds around 26% of the market), and quite another to deliver. As Techdirt reported back in 2006, similar plans by the French government to set up its own search engine soon fizzled out. The article in Der Spiegel talks of the Russian government providing around $20 million dollars to fund the new project, and notes that this seems far too little to take on Yandex with its 3,500 employees. As well as a large workforce, Yandex also has a healthy bank balance thanks to an earlier flotation on the New York Stock Exchange that brought it an extra $1.3 billion to bolster its already considerable resources.

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Filed Under: russia, search engine, sputnik
Companies: google, sputnik, yandex

16 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2013 @ 2:18am

"NO, MACHINES SHOULD HAVE TO LIE TO REMAIN 'CORRECT', JUST LIKE US HUMANS DO"
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2013 @ 2:39am

"this is designed to address two problems at once. "
"this is designed to address two problems at once. "

Then you say because it's because the existing one might be taken over.

Then you say:

"That's the second problem that Sputnik is designed to solve"

So your saying

"This is the first reason"

THE REASON
"this is the second reason"

Then you reiterate the first reason, for the 3rd time !!

What are the TWO reasons again ??
So it appears to be only one reason, (or risk) framed twice !!
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2013 @ 2:41am

it shows the lengths governments will go to just to have control of the people.

so, how long before the same thing is announced as happening in the USA? it's trying to do the same as Russia, it just hasn't issued the orders yet!
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2013 @ 2:45am

Re:
You mean it's NOT happening in the USA?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2013 @ 3:28am

were these two "risks" stated in the original article ?? or is it a fabrication/speculation of this author ?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2013 @ 3:54am

Re:
1. Yandex becomes hostile to the government. They are a free open source of information or mostly.
2. Funnel information as much as possible.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2013 @ 4:00am

Re: "this is designed to address two problems at once. "
Reading comprehension failing again AJ?

1st: Yandex might fall in to foreign hands

2nd: Yandex doesn't necessarily follow the ruling parties current propaganda and so turns up facts that contradict the governments 'facts'
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That One Guy (profile), 15 Oct 2013 @ 4:34am

Re: Re:
The US government doesn't bother with search engines(not yet anyway, they leave that to hollywood), they use the 'news' agencies to dictate what they want the citizenry to know and think.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2013 @ 4:35am

Re:
No way! The western way is letting private companies start up, maybe with a little government support. If a company is successful, outcompetes the rest in the market and starts to be troubling for people in control, they will get hit with a law on thousands of pages and gradually the laws will bring the company closer to a public takeover... Creating a public company to outcompete enemies is far too expensive and inefficient today! In Europe you would see more willingness for state funding of search on account of Scroogle and F!uuu being owned by primarily US-based companies. In other areas like free video, there are decent competitors to Youtube to push.
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Ninja (profile), 15 Oct 2013 @ 4:58am

In Soviet Russia...
... search engines search YOU.

When life imitates meme?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2013 @ 5:59am

Hmm, use a censored propaganda search, or an uncensored free search?
Hmm, I can't decide, use a censored search engine that doesn't let me read what the government doesn't like... or use a free market search engine that doesn't censor things...

Tough choice...

Oh what the heck, even I admit that as a liberal I'd rather watch news channels full of government propaganda from a government I don't like, rather then a free market Fox News propaganda news channel.

But the problem for the Russian government, is that neither Yandex or Google are remotely close to looking like some evil partisan propaganda search engine trying to brainwash you.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2013 @ 6:05am

Re: Hmm, use a censored propaganda search, or an uncensored free search?
"Hmm, I can't decide, use a censored search engine that doesn't let me read what the government doesn't like... or use a free market search engine that doesn't censor things..."

It's cute that you assume you'll have a choice.
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172pilot (profile), 15 Oct 2013 @ 6:50am

Re: When will we have one?
That's what I was thinking, although our government has proven in the last 2 weeks that it can't write a website, so we probably don't have to worry about it for a while, although it wont be for a lack of trying (and spending our money on it!)
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172pilot (profile), 15 Oct 2013 @ 6:54am

Re: Hmm, use a censored propaganda search, or an uncensored free search?
"I admit that as a liberal I'd rather watch news channels full of government propaganda from a government I don't like, rather then a free market Fox News propaganda news channel"

WHAT? If you actually meant what you said, then that's refreshingly honest.. Admitting that "the other" stations are nothing but government propaganda... Now, unless you're intentionally ignoring the reality of the world, I don't know why you'd RATHER watch that than Fox News..
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Kirion, 15 Oct 2013 @ 8:43am

Wrong facts
While pretty much everyone in russian internet community thinks that this will flop, the article is wrong on a few things.

It's impossible to take over Yandex. State-owned Sberbank hold "golden share" and can block any acquisitions.

It's actually not the Russian Government, but Rostelecom - state-owned telecom almost-monopoly.

Also, fun fact. The VP of Rostelecom, responsible for this project - Alexey Basov is a former founder of Begun, one of the first contextual advertising startups in the world, that Google tried to buy in 2008. The deal was blocked by Russian anti-monopoly commission.
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Sheogorath (profile), 15 Oct 2013 @ 11:22am

My prediction
Now: "Welcome to Sputnik, the [redacted] search engine that won't link to [redacted], [redacted] porn, or other such nastiness."
Six months later: "Why in the world is Sputnik failing so miserably?"
(The redacted words are censored, torrents, and gay, in that order.)
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