Yandex was founded byArkady Volozh and launched its first product, asearch engine, in 1997. Due to its significant media activities in Russia, the company has long faced pressure for control by thegovernment of Russia. In July 2024, in a transaction brought about byinternational sanctions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine and restrictions on foreign ownership,Nebius Group, the Dutch holding company that owned Yandex, sold its Russian assets to a group of Russian investors for a discounted price of US$5.3 billion.
In 1990,Arkady Volozh contactedIlya Segalovich (1964–2013), a friend of his from high school, to join his venture developing algorithms to search Russian texts.[9] They developed search software together under the company name Arcadia.[10] In 1993, they invented the name "Yandex" as an easy way to remember "Yet Another iNDEXer".[11] This is also abilingual pun on "index" since "Я" ("ya") means "I" in Russian.
On September 23, 1997, the Yandex.ru search engine was launched and presented at the Softool exhibition in Moscow.[12] In 1998, Yandex launchedcontextual advertisement on its search engine.[13] In 2000, Yandex was incorporated in Cyprus as a standalone company.[14]
Arcadia became part of CompTek, a software and computer parts supply company, with Volozh as the CEO in 2000.[15] In 2000,Baring Vostok Capital Partners acquired 35.72% of the company for $5.28 million.[16] In 2001, Yandex launched the Yandex.Directonline advertising network.[17]
The company became profitable in 2003.[18] Between 2004 and 2006, Tiger Technologies obtained an 11% ownership stake in the company.[19]
In September 2005, Yandex opened an office in Ukraine and launched a Ukrainian website.[20] In 2007, Yandex introduced a customized search engine for Ukrainian users, and in May 2007, it opened a development center in Kyiv. In 2008, Yandex increased bandwidth between its Moscow data centers and UA-IX in Ukraine fivefold. In 2009, all services of www.yandex.ua were localized for the Ukrainian market. In 2010, Yandex launched its "Poltava" search engine algorithm for Ukrainian users based on itsMatrixNet technology. In March 2007, Yandex acquired moikrug.ru, a Russiansocial networking service.[21]
Logo used from 2008 to 2016
In June 2008, Yandex announced the formation of Yandex Labs inSilicon Valley to foster innovation in search and advertising technology, with Vishal Makhijani as its CEO.[22][23]
Also in June 2008, Yandex acquired SMILink, a Russian road traffic monitoring agency, which was merged intoYandex Maps.[24]
In September 2008, the company acquired the rights to the Punto Switcher software program, an automatic Russian-to-English keyboard layout switcher.[25]
In January 2009,Firefox 3.5 replacedGoogle with Yandex as the default search provider for Russian-language builds.[26] Google was reinstated in 2012.[27]
In September 2010, Yandex launchedYandex Music, a music streaming service, with a catalogue of 800,000 tracks from 58,000 performers.[31][32][33]
Also in September 2010, Yandex invested in a $4.3 million financing round byFace.com (formerly Vizi Labs).[34] The company was acquired byFacebook in 2012 and Yandex received $5.7 million and 142,479 shares of Facebook for its stake.[35] In December 2010, Yandex launched Yandex.Start to find startups and work with them systematically, and purchased WebVisor's behavior analysis technology.[36]
In June 2011, Yandex andRambler signed an ad network deal to freeze out Russian competitors.[44] In August 2011, Yandex acquired The Tweeted Times, a news delivery startup.[45][46] In September 2011, the company launched its web portal in Turkey in 2011 and opened an office inIstanbul.[47][48]
Also in September 2011, Yandex acquired 10% ofBlekko for a $15 million investment as part of a $30 million financing round.[49][50][51] In November 2011, it acquired software developerSPB Software for $38 million.[52][53]
In March 2012, the company opened its first European office inLucerne to serve advertising clients in the EU.[54][55] In June 2012, the company acquired a 25% stake in Seismotech for $1 million.[56][57] In October 2012, Yandex launched a Chromium-based web browser.[58][59][60]
In November 2012, Yandex launched a mapping service for Europe and the U.S.[61]
In March 2013, the company added anEnglish languageuser interface to its translationmobile app to widen its international appeal.[62] In July 2013, Mail.Ru began placing Yandex Direct ads on its search result pages.[63] In October 2013, the company acquiredKinoPoisk, the biggest Russian movie search engine.[64][65][66][67]
In 2013, Yandex became the largest media property in Russia in terms of revenue.[68]
In 2014, the company opened its first Europeanresearch and development office inBerlin.[69] In February 2014, Yandex invested several million dollars in MultiShip.[70][71] In March 2014, it acquired Israeligeolocation startupKitLocate and opened aresearch and development (R&D) office inIsrael.[72][73][74] In May 2014, the company invested in SalesPredict, an Israeli company developing technology for predicting commercial sales.[75]
In June 2014, the company acquired Auto.ru, anonline marketplace andclassified advertising website for automobiles, for $175 million.[76][77] In November 2014, the company launched a new Chromium-based browser for Windows and Mac OS X.[78]
In May 2015, Yandex launched a minimalist web browser.[79] In June 2015, the company launched Yandex.Radio.[80][81] In September 2015, the company opened an office inShanghai to facilitate work with Chinese companies operating on the Russian language market.[82] In December 2015, the company acquiredInternet security company Agnitum.[83]
In 2018, the company launched Yandex Games, an Internet gaming platform accessible via browser and mobile. By 2022, 10,000 games were available on the platform.[90] As of January 2022, it had more than 11 million players per month.[91] The platform generates income via advertising and in-app purchases as well as its in-game currency called "Yans".[91] In February 2018, the company showed off the first tests of itsself-driving cars in Moscow.[92][93] Also in February 2018, Yandex acquiredUber's businesses in Russia,Kazakhstan,Azerbaijan,Armenia,Belarus andGeorgia.[94]
In May 2018,Sberbank and Yandex completed a joint venture deal to develop a B2C eCommerce ecosystem.[95] Also in May 2018, the company unveiled Yandex.Station, a smart speaker.[96] In August 2018, Yandex acquired fuel delivery service Toplivo v Bak.[97] In October 2018, Yandex acquired Edadil (Russian: Едадил,lit.'grocery deals'), a deal aggregator service.[98] In December 2018, Yandex announced the release of the Yandex.Phone, asmartphone.[99][100]
In September 2019, Yandex announced plans to create an investment portal in partnership withVTB Bank.[101] In October 2019, the company unveiled the second smart speaker of its own design—"Yandex. Station Mini."[102] Also in October 2019,Yandex Taxi acquired Partiya Edy ('The Party of Food').[103] In November 2019, the company was forced by the Russian government to undergo a corporate restructure, giving more influence to pro-Kremlin board members.Vladimir Putin was reportedly personally involved in the negotiations.[104]
In March 2021, the company launched Yandex Pay, a cashless payment service.[113] In June 2021, Yandex,VTB Bank, LANIT Group and computer hardware producer Gigabyte founded a joint venture to produce servers in Russia.[114] Also in August 2021, Yandex acquiredUber's stake in its self-driving car division and food delivery business in a $1 billion transaction.[115][116]
In September 2021, the IT company's servers were subjected to the largest DDoS attack in the history of the Russian internet, known as Runet.[117] Also in September 2021, the company completed thecorporate spin-off of Clickhouse.[118][119] In October 2021, construction of a new plant inRyazan Oblast was launched with 1 billion roubles during the first stage of investments. The new plant will produce servers, data storage systems, gateways, and smart equipment under the "Openyard" brand.[120] However, in June 2023, Yandex announced it was looking for ways to exit the joint venture.[121] Also in October 2021, Yandex acquired Wind’sTel Aviv operations.[122]
In January 2022, Yandex acquired eLama, a digital advertising platform.[123] That same month, it also acquired BandLink.[124] In April 2022, CEOElena Bunina resigned and moved toIsrael.[125][126]
In June 2022, Volozh resigned as CEO and from the board of directors.[127] In September 2022, the bank accounts of the company's affiliates in Finland, including those ofYango Group, were frozen.[128] Also in September 2022,Zen,Zen News, and yandex.ru were sold toVK.[129][130][131] Yandex acquired Delivery Club fromVK.[132][133] The company then changed itshome page to ya.ru.[134][135][136]
In December 2022, Yandex registered the company Beyond ML in Armenia to hold international investments.[137] Also in December 2022, Arkady Volozh resigned from the company.[138]
In May 2023, Yandex launchedYandexGPT, aneural network analogous to theChatGPT neural network.[139] It implemented the YandexGPT generative neural network in the virtual assistantAlice.[140]
Between 2021 and 2023, Yandex introduced automatic voice-over translation for any YouTube video in English, Chinese, French, Spanish, and German.[141]
In June 2023, the company launched a test of its first self-driving taxi in Moscow.[142] Also in 2023, the company opened an office inBelgrade, its biggest international office.[143][144][145] In July 2024, in a transaction brought about byinternational sanctions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine and restrictions on foreign ownership,Nebius Group, the Dutch holding company that owned Yandex, sold its Russian assets to a group of Russian investors for a discounted price of US$5.3 billion.[146][147][148][149][150][151] The publicly identified investor group includes Alexander Chachava (25%), Pavel Prass (15%),Lukoil (15%),Alexander Ryazanov (10%), and senior management (35%).[3] However, it is speculated that the publicly identified owners are intermediaries for others.[2] Other bidders for the assets includedVladimir Potanin.[152]
In October 2024, the company announced plans to invest $400 million in Turkey.[153]
In 2009, Yandex began development on its projectMatrixNet. It was a unique, patented algorithm for building machine learning models, which utilized one of the original gradient boosting schemes. In July 2017, theCatBoost library was released to the public. It implements the MatrixNet algorithm for building machine learning models.[154]
At the time of release, the technology was already in use as part of a collaborative project with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to analyze the results of particle experiments conducted.[155]
In 2012, Yandex initiated research and development in the field of natural speech processing.
In October 2013, Yandex launchedCocaine, an open-source PaaS system for creating custom cloud-hosting apps.[159]
In October 2023, the company introduced Yandex SpeechKit. It is a speech-recognition and synthesis technology as well as a public API for speech recognition that Android and iOS developers can use.[160]
In June 2022, the company published thesource code for theYDB database management system. It is used in its own voice assistant Alice as well as in Yandex.Go andYandex Market services.[161][162]
In March 2023, Yandex published the source code for YTsaurus, a platform for work with big data.[163][164]
Construction of the new Yandex headquarters on Sparrow Hills, Moscow, September 1, 2024
In October and November 2018, Yandex was targeted in a cyberattack using theRegin malware, aimed at stealing technical information from its research and development unit on how users were authenticated.[165] An investigation byKaspersky Lab attributed the hacks toFive Eyes intelligence agencies.[165]
Compromise of email accounts of 5,000 users (February 2021)
In February 2021, Yandex admitted that one of its system administrators with access rights to Yandex's email service had enabled unauthorized access, leading to almost 5,000 Yandex email inboxes being compromised.[166] The company sent an apology by email to the owners of the compromised mailboxes, but no compensation was announced.[167]
In May 2017, Yandex was banned in Ukraine by Presidential Decree No. 133/2017.[170] On June 1, 2017, Yandex closed its offices inKyiv andOdesa after theSecurity Service of Ukraine raided the offices and accused the company of illegally collecting Ukrainian users' data and sending it to Russian security agencies.[171] The firm denied any wrongdoing.[citation needed]
In late March 2022, Yandex was the subject of an investigation byFinancial Times and Me2B Alliance, anonprofit organization, as part of an application auditing campaign led by researcher Zach Edwards. Edwards and four expert researchers, includingCher Scarlett, a formerApple security engineer, found that asoftware development kit (SDK) called AppMetrica, a product of Yandex, was harvesting data from more than 52,000 applications such as a user'sdevice fingerprint andIP 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. Yandex denied that it was practical to identify users based on the information harvested and stated that requests for the data would be rejected.[178][179]
In February 2022, upon theRussian invasion of Ukraine, Yandex was threatened by the Russian government regarding information that it posted about Ukraine and added an online banner warning that some search results may contain inaccurate information.[180]
In March 2022, theBureau of Investigative Journalism reported that Yandex-delivered ads promoted misinformation about the war in Ukraine.[181] Many of the articles displayed in Yandex'snews aggregators were also from Russian state-owned and state-sponsored sources and the top search results about the war would sometimes prominently feature pro-war websites.[182]
In March 2022,Tigran Khudaverdyan resigned as executive director and deputy CEO after being sanctioned by theEuropean Union for "hiding information" from the Russian public through the manipulation of search results.[183]
According to an investigation byMeduza published on May 5, 2022, since 2016, the top-5 results on the Yandexhome page only include pro-Kremlinmedia approved by thePresidential Administration of Russia. Yandex stated that the highest-ranked news on itshome page is generated automatically through itsalgorithm. However, under Russian law, only news received from registered media sources may appear.[184]
In June 2023, Yandex was fined 2 million roubles by a Moscow court for its repeated refusal to share user information with the Federal Security Service.[185][186]
In July 2023,Kinopoisk, a subsidiary of the company, was fined 1 million rubles for "showing films demonstrating non-traditional sexual relations". The fine came after Russia outlawed public displays of non-traditional relationships and lifestyles to people of any age.[187]
In the first half of 2024, the company received 36,540 requests from the Russian government to disclose user data, a 12% increase from the prior year.[188]
In August 2024, the company was accused of collaborating with theFederal Security Service (FSB) to direct users to fake websites for theFreedom of Russia Legion and theRussian Volunteer Corps, groups composed of Russian supporters of Ukraine. The websites collected data from Russians who may be interested in joining the organisations and supporting Ukraine.[189]
