The path to monopoly: How Yandex is trying to combine the Internet

The model in which large Internet companies are trying to replace the entire Internet for users is not new - this is what Google does, developing dozens of services and products (from searching and working with documents in the cloud to autonomous cars) and buying projects that will help it to go to new markets - of which only Nest smart thermostats are worth - all in order to reach as many users as possible, collect as much data as possible about them and show the most targeted advertising possible.

In addition, Facebook and the same Google are engaged in the development of Internet.org and Project Loon charity projects, the purpose of which is to provide Internet access to those people who are now deprived of it - for such users the name Facebook and Google will be synonymous with the word “Internet”.
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Russia, one of the few countries where the largest US technology corporations met stubborn resistance from local players - and some of them are not averse to independently implementing the "Internet substitution" strategy to increase advertising revenues. So does, for example, "Yandex".

Advertising = life

Like Google, Yandex began with a search service, but later turned into a corporation that deals with a variety of Internet projects (search, maps, traffic jams, browser and so on). At the same time, the company receives its main revenues through advertising, so by all means we strive to improve its quality - to achieve this goal, we need data that allows for more accurate targeting and display of ads and banners for the most targeted audience.

Data on search queries alone is not enough, so Yandex uses every opportunity to obtain information from various sources, often exploiting its “official position”.

Property and data

In August 2014, the ranks of property owners dedicated to real estate shook the news that Yandex began testing property cards in its Ya . Real Estate aggregator. As is often the case, changes that are seemingly positive for users — understandably presented information that simplifies the search for housing — hide the second bottom.



Formally, the number of calls that real estate sites receive should not fall from the introduction of cards - Yandex, in any case, only shows information, but does not give up and sells apartments. However, innovations will allow the company to save information about people who are looking for various real estate and not share this data with anyone. In the future, this information can be effectively used to show banners to people looking for apartments in a particular area in the relevant advertising networks.

So far, there has been no further testing at facilities in St. Petersburg, but this case clearly demonstrates the ability of Yandex to collect and save data about users of various businesses.

Movie lovers

For the “IMDB clone”, the Kinopoisk website containing information on various films and user reviews of them, Yandex laid out $ 80 million. Some analysts suggested that the company wanted, among other things, to collect data on the preferences of viewers for its further use in advertising. Representatives of "Yandex" stated that the base "Kinopoisk" will be used to search for and develop their own recommendation services.

In addition, Yandex decided to make a profit from the service itself, turning it into an online cinema, which will aggregate video content from the legal portals of the RuNet.

What car are you on?

Even more money - $ 175 million - Yandex spent on the purchase of auto-resource Auto.ru. This transaction allowed the company to obtain data also about car lovers. Users who spend money on real estate, entertainment and cars form the most attractive audience for advertisers.

This strategy of the search giant doesn’t like all players whose products are sold through Yandex services - in early October, the Avito.ru ad service deleted all the car sales ads from the issue of auto.yandex.ru, despite being one of large recipients of traffic from this resource.



This step allowed to weaken the base auto.yandex.ru, since a significant part of it were ads with Avito.

Large sites

Yandex is not only collecting data for use in advertising, but also seeks to make its advertising systems more sophisticated and effective. So, to create an advertising solution for large sites (the so-called premium publishers included in the Top-20 Runet), the ADFOX advertising management system was acquired .



With it, you can place banners, mobile advertising, videos and other popular advertising formats. ADFOX's clients were 750 large Runet sites, on whose pages now Yandex ads appear, which is also hosted using RTB technology.

Orders directly from Market and delivery

Not so long ago, a new function appeared in Yandex.Market - now users can order goods directly from the product card without going to the site of a particular store. In addition, Yandex acquired the Multiship logistics services aggregator (later its founder announced that the Multiship team was unhappy with the cooperation).

The possibility of buying goods directly from the card caused some dissatisfaction on the part of online stores that lost traffic from Yandex.Market — in particular, they lost the opportunity to make additional sales using the built-in referral services.

Major players in the e-commerce industry and, in particular, the association AKIT, are dissatisfied with the development of “Market” - members of the association suggested blocking the work of the service due to the fact that the stores connected to the service sell “gray goods”.

Competition

The several examples cited above are far from being the only acquisitions of Yandex only recently, but illustrate the company's desire for hegemony on the Runet - according to this strategy, the more Yandex will have user data, the more effective its advertising services will be announcements.

Competing to “Yandex” here, in fact, is only Google - the “state” search engine Satellite from Rostelecom demonstrates frankly weak results (after launch, its attendance dropped six times). At the same time, Rostelecom has capabilities that Yandex does not have - it is primarily about communication with the state, it’s no secret that Sputnik is supposed to be made the default browser for users from government organizations.

Nor can Rostelecom lobbying new legislative initiatives that may be aimed at restricting the use of browsers created by foreign companies (among which, in fact, the “Yandex” registered in the Netherlands also belongs), an example of a bill that requires Russians to keep data on servers internally.

In addition, the search engine will be integrated with the services of electronic public services (payment of housing and communal services, obtaining a passport, etc.), which will also encourage users to switch to it.

In addition, Rostelecom is planning a large-scale advertising campaign to promote its own services.

The situation is similar to the United States, where the Facebok social network in Russia has not yet formed a rival with Google, since the largest social network VKontakte has not yet rebuilt its advertising services at the proper level.

An interesting point - unlike Google, which experimented with its own social service Google+, the only such project of Yandex is the My Circle network of professional contacts, but under certain circumstances the situation may change - the founder of Habrahabr took from Yandex »A loan to buy a site from Mail.Ru Group. If the entrepreneur is unable to return it, then his project will become the property of “Yandex”, however, there is no evidence indicating the reality of such a development.

Much more promising is the assumption that Internet service providers and cellular operators — companies that also have access to a huge array of customer data — will be able to make real competition to the search giant (such deep information is not available to search engines). At the same time, the experience of search companies and, in particular, Yandex, in creating advertising services is much higher, so it will be difficult for providers and operators to immediately achieve the same quality of their advertising.