Sputnik.ru (Спутник.ру State search engine)

Main article: Search system

Co-owners

For the beginning of 2015 of Sputnik LLC for 74.99% "subsidiaries" of Rostelecom — РТКомм.ру state company possess and "Rostelecom international limited", the rest — at Vyacheslav Rudnikov and Vasily Vasin.

For July, 2015, according to Kartoteka.ru, Vyacheslav Rudnikov controls 19.51% of Sputnik.

Popularity indicators

According to LiveInternet.ru, in June, 2015 the share of Sputnik in search queries of Russians fell lower than 0.01%. The resource is faced by a task in four years to enter in top-10 the websites of Runet. In 2015 Rostelecom was going to invest in the project 600-800 million rubles in addition.

History of search engine

2020: Closing of a search service Sputnik

The Poiskovy portal Sputnik (Software Sputnik LLC) company affiliated enterprise of Rostelecom, finally contracted the search service Sputnik. About it became izestno on September 7, 2020 goad. Earlier Sputnik was positioned as "the national state search system and the Internet portal".

From the official site of Sputnik the line for input of search queries was already gone. On the homepage of the website links to other developments of the company – the entrusted and corporate browsers, the analytical system and a distribution kit of corporate search with machine learning are submitted.

From former services of Sputnik (weather, TV program, cards, finance, "the comfortable country", "my house", etc.) only corporate news and the Спутник.дети project work, and search from page 404 throws on go.mail.ru. As Mikhail Kozlov, the head of research projects in Mail.ru Group, one of the first noticed disappearance of a search line from the website of Sputnik, "now instead of the search portal – the corporate website noted".

The source made in Rostelecom an inquiry for the reasons of closing of the search system "Sputnik" and plans of use of the acquired technologies in other projects of the company. Representatives of the company did not comment on a request^[1].

2017

An opportunity for legal persons to hand over the reporting on the website of FTS using Sputnik

The legal entities using for authentications in "Personal Account of the Taxpayer for Legal Entities" service the key carrier Rutoken on the website FTS Russia can use browser Sputnik for work in the personal accounts now. On August 18 reported about it in the company "Asset".

It became possible as a result of expansion of FTS of lists of browsers for work in a personal account for legal persons. Earlier the full-fledged work in a personal account required accomplishment of a number of specifications, including existence of the browser with support of enciphering of the protected connections in accordance with GOST. So far the given conditions were answered by Internet Explorer. On the official site of Sputnik it is possible to download versions for Microsoft Windows. In more detail about it it is possible to read here.

Creation of national search engine was recognized unsuccessful

Rostelecom recognized unsuccessful attempt of creation of the national search engine "Sputnik" started in the spring of 2014 and now thinks of how to reorient it on other tasks, the Vedomosti newspaper with reference to the sources close to^[2] reports in May, 2017 ^[3].

As the engineering design Sputnik took place, but as the searcher, popular in Runet, did not, one of interlocutors of the edition notes. According to LiveInternet, sputnik.ru has even no 1% of the search market of Runet. So, in April the hop count from Sputnik on other Russian websites made about 100.8 thousand whereas at the most popular searchers is "Yandex" and Google – there were billions of transitions. The share of "Yandex" in April made 54%, Google – 40.8%, Mail.ru – 4.4%, recorded LiveInternet.

2015: National search engine "Sputnik" in digits

• 2 billion pages with dangerous contents were filtered by Sputnik for ^[4]
• 2 million users used the searcher from May 22 to June 2, 2014
• 550 thousand people came on Sputnik in the first day of work
• 288 million rubles were made by revenue of Sputnik LLC, i.e. investment of Rostelecom in 2013, before start of the beta
• 37 cities are covered by the section "The poster for children". There 1104 movie theaters and 3800 actions are displayed
• from 15 thousand the number of the drugstores displayed in the section of Medicine during the period from start grew till present to 25 thousand
• 85 partners use cards of Sputnik. Their number includes the Administration of Saint Petersburg and services of public transport of Kazan
• On May 12, 2015 "The league of the safe Internet" called Sputnik the safest search engine for children in Runet
• 800 thousand visits were involved by Sputnik in April, 2014
• 2548e the place is taken at the moment by Sputnik in the rating of the Russian websites on audience

2014

Sputnik.ru is transformed to the service portal

As of April, 2014 Rostelecom completes creation of the Internet portal "Спутник.ру" (it will be placed to the address sputnik.ru), reported, answering a question of CNews, the president of the company Sergey Kalugin. The prototype of a resource will be provided in April, he said. The project details in the company are not disclosed.

The idea of the project was transformed, and now to the address sputnik.ru is going to start not only search, as well as the service portal. The interlocutor of CNews, close to Rostelecom, says that the portal will allow citizens to use various state and commercial services. For example, on it it will be possible to receive the services connected with housing and public utilities, to register in appointment, to cause on the house of different specialists, etc.

According to the interlocutor of CNews in one of large Internet holdings, "Спутник.ру" will have own personal account under the name "Fir-tree" (possibly, integrated with the Unified identification and authentication system in which users of the portal of state services are registered). Through it, obviously, different services^[5] will also be ordered^[6].

In May, 2014 Rostelecom began public testing of the Sputnik portal (it is located at the address sputnik.ru, in the domain. To the Russian Federation it is unavailable). The declaration of start of service will be made during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum today. For the first time that Rostelecom creates a system Sputnik.

Certain "subsidiary" of Rostelecom - Sputnik LLC is responsible for work of the portal. The programming team from the KM-Media company purchased two years ago by Rostelecom was engaged in development of Sputnik.

Sputnik will be positioned as the service platform at the heart of which there is a socially oriented search engine. It is planned that the search robot will index all Runet, but the relevance of search issue will be focused on the services useful to citizens. Search results will also be cleaned from content unsuitable for children.

At the end of 2014 project managers of the search system "Sputnik" belonging to Rostelecom company announced that in the near future the resource will get a full-fledged mail service and own browser. Now search of specialists who will be able to implement this project is conducted.

Sputnik included in Lekarstva service pharmacy chain

On March 12, 2015 about 1 thousand points of Sputnik A5 pharmacy chain became known of inclusion in the structure of Lekarstva service of the Sputnik portal ^[7].

Lekarstva service the command of the Sputnik portal as "3 in 1", for the help to users in search of the nearest drugstores created, price comparisons and obtaining descriptions of required medicines. Service displays a remaining balance of necessary medicine in specific drugstore and will help to find medicine not only by the name, but also on active ingredient, selecting inexpensive analogs.

Partner drugstores interact with service of Sputnik on special API. This interaction interface allows owners of drugstores to load the range of the sales points. By means of API information on availability of medicines, a remaining balance and the prices is daily updated.

"We are interested in expansion of the list of our partners, – the commercial director of A5 group noted to Armina Daniyelyan. – Thanks to connection to service of Sputnik, we save time of our buyers – using the Medicine application "A5" began to find the necessary medicine in the nearest drugstores quicker and more simply".

According to developers, a task of Sputnik as federal project – presence at the maximum number of regions and the localities of Russia and cooperation with such large networks as "A5", answers conditions of this task.

2013

Rostelecom develops Sputnik.ru search engine

In March, 2013 it became known that Rostelecom creates the search system which will be based on the domain Sputnik.ru. Told a source in one of the Russian Internet companies about this CNews. The corresponding domain is registered on "subsidiary" of Rostelecom-РТКомм.ру, the page is closed by the password now.

Earlier other source – in the government – said CNews that there was a task to start search engine in March, 2013. The Presidential Administration supervised the project, according to him (the Assistant to the President is the former Minister of Communications Igor Shchegolev now). But the interlocutor of the edition in administration claims that they have no relation to this project.

Earlier in the list of tasks which were set for Rostelecom by the government within performance of the contract according to the Information Society program the point "Development of Means of Information Search in Different Types of Content" appeared. But what specifically was behind this point, still in the company did not explain.

Rostelecom did not begin to comment on the acquisition reasons of "KM of Media" and information on use of this asset for creation of the searcher, having sent to the report. There it is only written that this transaction was performed for the purpose of business diversification.

Shortly before it to Rostelecom the new vice president came from the Internet industry – Alexey Basov. Before he was the vice president of Mail.ru, and even earlier – headed the system of contextual advertizing "Begun". It is logical to assume that Basov will supervise the Sputnik.ru^[8].

According to some information the project will move ahead "at the state level" — using installation by default in authorities and state companies. The search engine should be started in the first quarter 2014. 20 million dollars are spent for creation of the project the Vedomosti newspaper reports.

Gossearch.ru is the parody to state search engine

On April 25, 2013 the domain gossearch.ru on which there was a website "Gospoisk" - the parody search system which is allegedly made with assistance of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and Rostelecom company was registered.

When the user enters a request into a search line, from it the require to enter a name, a surname and a middle name, then passport data, a residence address and the reason of a request. Each following question is followed by explanations of such character: "Your address can be used for communication with you in case of a task of suspicious and potentially dangerous search queries or gross violations of rules of the website" or "The indication of incorrect data is qualified as making obviously false data". After the user answers all questions, he receives the notification with number of the search query and the offer to be in the nearest department of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation and to call this number.

That the website is the parody the user does not see any explanations. At the same time, in its source code it is said that "everything above-written a lie". Creators of a resource explain that it "represents absurd imagination on what could be the national search system".

On April 26, 2013 Rostelecom blocked access to the website "Gospoisk" for the subscribers. A number of users of social networks reported about it. In attempt to visit the website at them the message "Appeared access to a required resource is limited".

The press service of the company confirmed blocking of the portal in the comment to Lenta.ru. Rostelecom said that the website was blocked according to the decision of the Pskov city court. According to the press service, the IP address of Gospoisk matched the address of one of portals of gamblings to which the court also demanded to stop access.

2012: Rostelecom buys "KM of Media"

In the summer of 2012 Rostelecom acquired 74.9% of shares of the KM of Media company which was engaged in software development for the KM Online group (integrates the Km.ru portal and the Internet encyclopedia "Kirill and Mefodiy"). Transaction amount was $5.75 million, follows from the published annual report of Rostelecom. Purchase was made through "РТКомм.ру".

In 2012 revenue of acquired company made 142 million rubles, net profit – 30 million rubles. The top manager of one of the Internet companies knows that purchase was performed with the purpose to receive development team which will be engaged in creation of search service. KM already have an experience of implementation of the state online projects: technologies of the company were used during creation of social network for regional officials of Regionalochk.

2010: The project of the state searcher from the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications

The working prototype of the Russian state search system on the Internet had to appear in 2010. Costs for the project till 2012 will make 3.3 billion rubles from which only 300 million are private money. It follows from the presentation of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications shown to the government and the president, and which was at disposal of Gazeta.ru.

Among services of the search portal except standard – "state mail", "internal search" and the aggregator of news. Implementation in search engine of a mail service by an example of "Yandex" is meant, the employee of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications says, notifications from public authorities can come to a box of users and also there will be a possibility of sending complaints. Internal search can be provided to state company or the private trader.

On the state searcher also the system of downloading, listening, viewing, reading multimedia files thinks – not to give audience to YouTube resources and faylokhranilishcha.

The presentation under a signature stamp of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications "Creation of the Russian search system" (the copy of the document is at the disposal of Gazeta.ru) was for the first time shown on the closed board of the ministry in March, tells a source in department. Then the presentation was shown on commission session on upgrade of economy at the president on May 13, tells a source in the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications. According to the representative of Presidential Administration, the Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications Igor Shchegolev only mentioned at a meeting a possibility of creation of the national search system, and the detailed presentation was provided to administration later. The Assistant to the President Arkady Dvorkovich confirmed to Gazeta.ru – the idea of creation of the searcher was disclosed by Shchegolev on commission session on May 13, but Dvorkovich did not see the presentation.

In the shorthand report of an open word class of Shchegolev on the website of the commission of mentioning about search engine is not present.

A week ago at a forum in Tver Shchegolev claimed that the state has no plans to create own search engine to compete with the available Russian systems of type of "Yandex".

Financing stages

The presentation describes the main stages of creation of the searcher, its purpose and an opportunity. According to the document, development of the concept of the searcher (the name is not chosen, the interlocutor in the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications says) and also start in network of "the working prototype" should take place until the end of 2010. The budget of this part of work – 200 million rubles.

Slide from the presentation the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications (spring of 2010)

During 2011 it is going to spend 1 billion rubles for "industrial debugging, semantics, innovations". In 2012 (the presentation covers the period till this year, but by some parameters the forecast is given till 2018) 1.8 billion will leave on "scaling and automatic translation".

All specified amounts are budget money. The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications Electronic Russia (comes to an end in December, for 2009-10 in it the state transfers 5.8 billion rubles), and since 2011 – according to the Information Society long-term target program (LTTP) suggests to select them in the budget of the current year for the FTP (is in an imposition stage, it is started since January 1, 2011, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications hoped earlier that cerebral palsy volume till 2018 will be about 900 billion rubles).

Venture business should enclose other 300 million in financing of search engine (2 subprojects on 150 million everyone), follows from the presentation. On a venture basis "advanced program developments" – the visual and personalized search, "artificial intelligence in the analysis of requests" should be developed. Financing lays down on JSC Rosinfokominvest, the venture fund created at the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and which head of the Council of directors is Shchegolev.

The fund reported to Gazeta.ru that were not involved in imposition of the project, for the first time hear about the possible partnership in creation of the searcher.

The European Quaero project (start in 2012), costs for which – 300 million euros became an example of abundant financing for authors of the presentation. But Quaero is not financed from the budget, venture money there, the expert in the industry who wished to save anonymity comments.

In general the expert estimates requests at $110 million for the Russian project as small from the point of view of stated tasks. "Swing too big: to occupy all countries which will be indexed by the searcher (the presentation to it carries regions, friendly Russia, – the CIS, Eastern Europe, Latin America, India, the Arab world – Gazeta.ru), the stated money is obviously not enough", – the expert believes.

Participation of KM.ru and Abbyy

According to the industry expert, the companies km.Ru and Abbyy (wire transfers) already participate in the project according to the appeal of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications. KM even "outlines design" the searcher, he says. In Abbyy refused comments for the reason that "the project still is finally not created and to speak about the beginning of work so far early". It was not succeeded contact km.Ru and E-Style company which includes KM at the time of delivery of material. In presentation materials as an example images of the search KMSearch page are used – KM have no such design of the searcher now.

Justification of the project

Justification of need of the state search engine comes down to an opportunity to control an information access (the page of search starting at 50% of users, and in 10 years the page of search will become the main point of entry to information, the presentation says).

"Search – information window of Russia", – explains to the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications the state importance of the project. At search queries it is offered to cut dangerous information – "extremism, drugs, a pornography" – and to cover the websites reflecting the state and municipal information.

For example, "Yandex" has all potential for restriction of search results such also now, the industry expert says, remembering set on school School Yandex computers – the service excluding information, dangerous to children, from search results.

The idea of the state searcher was supported by management on domestic policy of Presidential Administration, tell the source close to the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, and the deputy of the State Duma. The deputy head of administration Vladislav Surkov and the deputy head of management of domestic policy Konstantin Kostin participated in meetings on this subject in the last year. Interest in Internet search and aggregators of news was warmed up by war with Georgia, the interlocutor when it became clear that normal search engines highly ranged the news representing the unofficial point of view tells.

The representative of management of AP in a conversation with Gazeta.ru did not begin to comment on information on participation of department in creation of the searcher.

Technical requirements

Requirements for creation of the searcher: 10 thousand servers on 30 Tb everyone, network transmission capacity 10gb/sec. In service of servers and communication channels in the presentation the Rostelecom company is called the possible contractor. "In the company do not work on this project yet, the offer did not arrive", – the representative of Rostelecom told. But infrastructure of Rostelecom can quite meet requirements of the described project regarding the volume of information storage and network transmission capacity, he added.

Yandex position

In "Yandex" consider a possibility of creation of the searcher on the state segment of Runet. The director of technologies and development of the company Ilya Segalovich told about it in October, 2010. "Content volume on the state websites considerably grows. There is a sense to be engaged in the certain searcher working with the state segment", - he said.

Search in the state websites can appear, for example, as the separate page on "Yandex", Segalovich argues, making a reservation, at the same time, that so far the company of works in this direction does not conduct.

Gave the American Google as a successful example of search in the state Segalovich segment: "It is a convenient service and I would like that in Russia something resembled". "Yandex" is ready to cooperate with the state regarding consultation and expert support.

In the USA at Google US Government Search really works (with less formal name UncleSam). On this separate page issue on requests is limited to the American government.gov segment. The White House websites of whitehouse.gov, the space agency NASA nasa.gov, State department of america.gov, the Federal Election Commission of fec.gov and others are indexed, for example. With a question of whether the Russian localization of CNews service is planned addressed the CEO of Google in Russia Vladimir Dolgov, but he said that the company traditionally does not comment on the plans.

"The idea of search in the state websites is reasonable, and technically it is simple to implement it, - the managing partner of Ashmanov and Partners company Igor Ashmanov considers. – "Yandex", first, already has pages for thematic search (according to blogs, goods, etc.), and, secondly, in its directory of the websites there are already state agencies. At simplicity of implementation emergence of such tab – a question of priorities of the company". Updating of data on resignations and appointments of officials from the official state websites, but not according to information from Network in general could become use of such thematic search, according to the expert.

Nigma position

The idea of creation of a separate state tab does not fit into the strategy of Нигма.рф search engine. "By estimates of our quality control department, we well work requests to the state websites and we do not consider that the separate tab is necessary, - Victor Lavrenko, the head of developers of Nigma says CNews. - We aim to create the search system which understands a request of the user and at once issues it the necessary information. Therefore we take great pain to refuse tabs".

Position of Mail.ru

In Mail.ru on the service treat the idea of creation of a state tab with some scepticism, though consider that its creation — not too difficult technical task. The Poisk@mail.ru project manager Vladislav Shabanov believes that to the user, by and large, it is not important on what website he will find information necessary to it, the main thing that it was relevant to its request though "make the special filter which in search issue will leave only the websites of some fixed category in this case - the websites of public institutions, is possible".

The opinion of Shabanov in which the user should not think is interesting, "what category of the websites should be selected, where to check". In his opinion, the search robot should distinguish type of a request and automatically raise a priority of those Internet resources on which there is information necessary to the user. According to him if the person looks for the movie "Titanic", then Poisk@mail.ru will issue information on the movie. However, "for resources of public institutions such function is not implemented yet as the number of the search queries relating to this subject is small".

2009: Reyman confirms existence of the idea about creation of the state searcher

Rumors that in Russia with assistance of the state the national search engine can be created were for the first time confirmed officially in 2009 when the adviser to the president of that time and the former Minister of Communications Leonid Reiman said that this initiative really exists.

Links

• Website Sputnik.ru

Notes