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Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

ir.yandex

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Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#61

Post by wink »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #13

>(Russian Google) Are there people here who don't know Yandex? Genuinely curious, if you didn't know what it is I'd like to hear from you.

I think you're asking the wrong question, at least for me.

If "Yandex" is selling all Russia-based businesses/assets and is itself "Russian Google" - what's left then.

For me this means I now kinda have to dig deeper and grasp wtf is actually going on, because to me Yandex was exactly that, a Russian search engine and nothing more (although I saw some people hint at more in the past, never looked it up).

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#62

Post by alephnerd »

severino wrote: post #60

I wonder how will Yandex Mail work after this (or maybe currently?) in regards to data protection. I know there exists mail.yandex.com and mail.yandex.ru... is the former, or will it be, based in the Netherlands, meaning that access from western countries with a court order would be granted?

Yandex Mail is part of the Russian business that is getting divested based on the press release.

Yandex is basically splitting it's Russian assets (Search, Mail) from it's EU assets (a couple moonshots and a DC).

It looks more like a Russian company divesting from the EU than the other way around tbh.

"The Purchaser consortium, led by members of the senior management team of our Russian businesses"

"YNV will retain a portfolio of international businesses and other non-Russian assets, including four early-stage technology businesses and other assets:

- Nebius AI, an AI cloud platform that is one of the largest providers of GPU capacity in Europe;

- Toloka AI, a data solutions partner for GenAI and Large Language Model development;

- Avride, one of the leading developers of self-driving technologies;

- TripleTen, an EdTech service that equips people with in-demand tech skills;

- our data center located in Finland;

and minority investments in other technology businesses."

[0]

[0] - https://ir.yandex/press-releases?year=2024&id=05-02-2024

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#63

Post by nextaccountic »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #51

Good, I use yandex mail and search and I would mind if it died. Mail is a no nonsense mail provider, and works everywhere my own tld address is rejected by stupid forms. And yandex censorship is different than google censorship, so the venn diagam of what you can find with both is pretty good.

> yandex censorship is different than google censorship

That's exactly it

We shouldn't have so few search providers in any case

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#64

Post by throwaway167 »

wkat4242 wrote: post #19
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #13

>(Russian Google) Are there people here who don't know Yandex? Genuinely curious, if you didn't know what it is I'd like to hear from you.

I know it but only because they didn't require phone confirmation for email accounts so it was great for sockpuppets. I've asked around here to my colleagues and none of them have ever heard of it. One of them asked if it's the same as baidu :)

Requiring phone numbers for things is why I don't sign up.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#65

Post by ivan_gammel »

I feel sorry for Volozh, he managed to keep his business for longer than many others.

It is interesting that a part of the deal is paid in yuan, probably to avoid Western sanctions. This is the new reality in which Russian businesses do exist now and may be a sign of the fragmentation of the global financial system.

Also interesting is that while Volozh now resides in Israel, Yandex was very active in UAE recently with taxi, food and groceries delivery services. I doubt that anything will change because of the massacre in Gaza.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#66

Post by csomar »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #65

I feel sorry for Volozh, he managed to keep his business for longer than many others. It is interesting that a part of the deal is paid in yuan, probably to avoid Western sanctions. This is the new reality in which Russian businesses do exist now and may be a sign of the fragmentation of the global financial system. Also interesting is that while Volozh now resides in Israel, Yandex was very active in UAE recently wi…

> Also interesting is that while Volozh now resides in Israel, Yandex was very active in UAE

UAE is on friendly terms with Israel (at least for now). They have also been aggressively targeting US tech refugees (ie: telegram, binance).

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#67

Post by sam_goody »

The only time I ever saw a car without a driver was on a visit to Israel.

On the highway to Tel Aviv (intercity - not a side road), there was a car with Yandex Auto Drive (in Hebrew) plastered all over it, driving in the lane next to ours. We had plenty of time to look - there was no driver at all, or they were sitting so low they would not have been able to see the road.

Made me realize that some companies fly under the radar and then seem to show up out of nowhere. I never thought of Yandex as anything but search till that moment.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#68

Post by ivan_gammel »

wink wrote: post #61
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #13

>(Russian Google) Are there people here who don't know Yandex? Genuinely curious, if you didn't know what it is I'd like to hear from you.

I think you're asking the wrong question, at least for me. If "Yandex" is selling all Russia-based businesses/assets and is itself "Russian Google" - what's left then. For me this means I now kinda have to dig deeper and grasp wtf is actually going on, because to me Yandex was exactly that, a Russian search engine and nothing more (although I saw some people hint at more in the past, never looked it up).

Yandex is Russian Alphabet, not just Google: they have a successful mail/cloud product, maps, taxi, food and grocery delivery among many other things. Some of those products are successful abroad.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#69

Post by alephnerd »

csomar wrote: post #66
ivan_gammel wrote: post #65

I feel sorry for Volozh, he managed to keep his business for longer than many others. It is interesting that a part of the deal is paid in yuan, probably to avoid Western sanctions. This is the new reality in which Russian businesses do exist now and may be a sign of the fragmentation of the global financial system. Also interesting is that while Volozh now resides in Israel, Yandex was very active in UAE recently wi…

> Also interesting is that while Volozh now resides in Israel, Yandex was very active in UAE UAE is on friendly terms with Israel (at least for now). They have also been aggressively targeting US tech refugees (ie: telegram, binance).

That's not the reason.

Around 20% of Israelis immigrated from the Soviet Union 20-30 years ago, and Russia and Ukraine still have fairly large Jewish communities.

Volozh is himself Russian Jewish, so it makes sense he decided to take up Israeli citizenship instead of keeping his Russian one. A lot of Ukrainian and Russian Jews did that right after 2022.

Dubai has a fairly large CIS diaspora (around 1.5-2% of the entire population) so it's unsurprising that Yandex is fairly popular there.

Russian services are decently popular in Israel for similar reasons as well.

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