Ru-Center (Ru-Center) Regional Network Information Center

Ru-Center (Regional Network Information Center) is a Russian Internet company that provides services for registering domain names, as well as providing addressing on the Internet. Included in the RU-Center Group, which is controlled by RBC.

Aktivs

The RU-Center brand unites organizations engaged in both commercial and non-commercial activities:

• Closed Joint Stock Company "Regional Network Information Center" (CJSC "RSIC") provides commercial services, in particular, domain registration, secondary domain market services and hosting;
• NIK Media LLC provides a domain name parking service.

Services

RU-Center is an accredited domain name registrar:

• in RU, RF domains - National Network Domain Coordination Center Internet
• in the SU domain - Internet Development Fund
• in NET, COM, ORG, BIZ, INFO - ICANN domains (Internet Domain Name and Address Space Distribution Corporation)
• in CC, TV domains - VeriSign, Inc.
• in the ME domain - doMEn, d.o.o.
• in the TEL domain - Telnic Ltd
• in MOBI domain - dotMobi
• in the NAME domain - VeriSign, Inc.
• in the TRAVEL - Tralliance domain
• in AERO domain - SITA

RU-Center is a registrar in Russia and Eastern Europe, which has a wide partner network in our country and abroad. Thanks to the presence of partnerships with the leaders of the Russian financial sector, RU-CENTER offers a variety of forms of payment for its services.

RU-Center specializes in providing domain support services, including secondary domain market services.

History

2024

Launch sales in the спб.рф area

On June 6, 2024, RU-CENTER announced the launch of the sale of domain names in the спб.рф. zone In honor of the opening of the domain zone, RU-CENTER presented the first domains to St. Petersburg and the Roscongress Foundation - город.спб.рф and форум.спб.рф. Read more here.

Connection of customer identification through Public Services

RU-CENTER has launched simplified user identification when establishing a new contract for services or identifying an existing one - now users will be able to confirm their identity through Public services (ESIA). The company announced this on May 14, 2024.

Enhanced customer identification hosting-providers required within the framework of compliance with the amendments to the Law "On Information" of July 31, 2023. According to the latest requirements, providers can provide services only to customers who have confirmed their identity in one of several ways, including personal provision of documents, use, unified biometric system EDS transfer from the client's account or using ESIA.

A pilot project to connect RU-CENTER information systems to the ESIA for identification and authentication of applicants in electronic form was worked out by the company with the Ministry of Digital Development and other government bodies. As of May 2024, identification through Public services is available only for individuals. It is assumed that after testing the mechanics, the RU-CENTER experience will be replicated to the rest of the hosting and domain market.

RU-CENTER, as a supplier of most of the most popular sites in, RuNet has always kept issues cyber security and transparency a priority. Against the background of growth phishing and other types on attacks the infrastructure of providers, deanomization of users is a natural step. At the same time, the strengthening of protection should not occur due to a decrease in the convenience of customers. Entering through Public services as a quick and convenient solution is already actively used in and, fintech and telecom expanding this practice to other security-sensitive areas, such as Internet asset management, is logical and useful, - said the Andrey Kuzmichev general director of RU-CENTER.

RU-CENTER will use the information received from ESIA strictly for the purpose of identifying customers. To work with data in accordance with the law on personal data, a reserved infrastructure with certified equipment and protective equipment has been deployed.

2016

Lawsuit against ex-general director Panov for 20 million rubles

In September 2016, a subsidiary of RBC - the registrar of domain names Ru-Center - filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Arbitration Court against the former general director of the company, Alexander Panov, to recover 20.26 million rubles from it.

The statement of claim states that in December 2012 Ru-Center signed a contract worth 20.26 million rubles. with the advertising agency "Jibb" for advertising on the site zaycev.net. According to Ru-Center, the contractor did not fulfill its obligations under the contract and did not have a contractual relationship with the portal zaycev.net. The plaintiff claims that neither the contractor nor third parties had the opportunity to advertise on the specified site, and the company itself did not need this agreement. In addition, the company "Jibb," which was liquidated, had the signs of a one-day company. The plaintiff insists that these circumstances are the basis for recovering losses from Panov. RBC confirmed the filing of the lawsuit and the essence of the claims.

Panov told RNS that he did not make decisions on the conclusion of an advertising contract, the contractor and the price of the contract was determined by RBC.

"Ru-Center

disputes the contract of 2012, the contractor and the cost of which was determined by the shareholders of Ru-Center, that is, RBC. All documentation under this agreement towards Ru-Center was provided by the RBC financial service, "Panov said. He noted that "he considers the filing of a lawsuit an attempt to put pressure on the victim in a criminal case^[1]

.

Panov initiates a criminal case on fraud in RBC

On April 29, 2016, the Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow opened a criminal case under Art. 4.159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale, sanction - imprisonment of up to 10 years) at the request of the former shareholder of Bayt-Telecom (managed the data processing center, controlled by RBC) Alexander Panov about the deprivation of his and Yaroslav Karetsky 25% of the company's shares.

The decision to initiate a criminal case, according to RNS, states that the value of 25% of the shares of Bayt-Telecom was $13.4 million.

Panov told RNS with reference to the documents of the investigation that the circle of persons whom law enforcement agencies will check for involvement in the crime includes RBC CEO Nikolai Molibog, his first deputy Ekaterina Kruglova and other top managers of the holding. More details (see RBC History).

Panov accuses RBC of depriving its stake in Bayt-Telecom

In March 2016, it became known that the general director of RBKNikolai Molibog and the former head of Ru-Center, Alexander Panov, gave explanations to the Moscow prosecutor's office about the alleged deprivation of minority shareholders (Panov himself and Yaroslav Karetsky) shares in the company "Bayt-Telecom," Izvestia reported. ^[2]Alexander Panov and Yaroslav Karetsky controlled 25% of the company. The proceedings on the change of ownership of Bayt-Telecom began at the request of its former shareholder Panov, who, as Izvestia writes with reference to minority shareholders, owned 12.5% of the company's shares (Karetsky and Panov estimate their losses at $6.5 million each). Since 2007, Panov served as managing partner of the Hosting Community group of companies (operating under the Ru-Center brand, 100% owned by RBC), which also included Bayt-Telecom.

75% of Bayt Telecom was controlled by Aquarius Market Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands, with ultimate beneficiaries Herman Kaplun and Alexander Morgulchik, Izvestia writes. The general director of Byte Telecom at the time of establishment was Irina Panova, the wife of Alexander Panov. Herman Kaplun, Alexander Morgulchik and other RBC tops close to them left the holding in April 2012.

In May 2014, Panov also resigned as general director of Ru-Center by decision of the company's shareholders, his duties passed to Molibog. In October 2014, Bayt-Telecom changed its CEO, as Panov said, Farida Karimova became it, 100% of the company's shares were transferred to it, and the Bayt-Telecom legal entity was reorganized into a new one.

In March 2016, Panov claims that he did not sell his stake in Bayt-Telecom and did not transfer it to anyone, and learned about the change of ownership of the company from representatives of the Federal Tax Service. Explanations in the prosecutor's office do not indicate the initiation of a case and the existence of offenses in general. Technically, proceedings on the illegal deprivation of shareholders' shares can lead to the initiation of cases under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Fraud").

"The prospects of the case will depend on the evidence base," Alexander Zheleznikov, managing partner of the Zheleznikov & Partners Bar Association, commented on the situation to Izvestia.

The Investigative department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is engaged in consideration of a possible case of fraud. In March 2016, Panov and the head of RBC Nikolai Molibog gave explanations on the Prosecutor General's Office about this complaint.

In April 2016, the editorial office of the Roem.ru had a response to the results of an audit conducted by the Prosecutor General's Office at the request of one of the minority shareholders of Bayt-Telecom, Alexander Panov. The letter says that in August 2014, Russian citizen Farida Karimova, acting as the only shareholder of Bayt-Telecom, handed over to the Federal Tax Service documents to replace the general director of Bayt-Telecom from Igor Selivanov (at this time he holds the post of financial director of RBC) for himself and further for the liquidation of CJSC Bayt-Telecom in the form of joining InvestProekt LLC, which was later also liquidated by joining Drok LLC. As a result, the share of Panov and Karetsky in the company became zero.

According to the results of the audit, the Prosecutor General's Office saw in the situation possible signs of fraud and illegal reorganization of the legal entity and in accordance with Art. 37 of the Code of Criminal Procedure transferred materials to the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Panov clarified Roem.ru that, in his opinion, Karimova's actions could not be carried out without the participation of the majority shareholder of BT, who, before the reorganization, owned 75% of the operator's shares - the offshore company Caruta Investments. According to one of the documents signed by RBC CEO Nikolai Molibog, which the investigation has (also at the disposal of the editorial office), Caruta Investments through the offshore chain belonged to RBC 100%.

It is obvious to us that the actions as a result of which we lost our property were not without the participation of RBC management. I am talking specifically about the team of Nikolai Molibog, I and my partner have no complaints about the previous RBC management teams Alexander Morgulchik and Herman Kaplun, Evgeny Shishkov and Sergei Lavrukhin, "says Panov.

As of April 2016, the data center in the same place and with the same equipment is still functioning, but owned by Reconne Telecom Operator LLC and offers services for placing equipment under the itsdata.ru brand, Panov says.

The head of the RBC press service, Yegor Timofeev, said that the holding had not received a request regarding Panov's claims.

We do not know anything about the response of the prosecutor's office to Alexander Panov. If RBC receives an official request regarding this case, we are ready to take part in all procedures in accordance with the law. RBC public holding, information about changes in the structure of the group of companies is open and reflected in public reporting, - said Timofeev.

2014: Dismissal of Panov. Molybog - CEO

In May 2014, Alexander Panov left the post of general director of Ru-Center. As he himself explained on his Facebook, he had to do this by decision of the shareholders. His place was taken by Nikolai Molibog, General Director of RBC. At the same time, in a standard press release based on the results of the reshuffle, the company does not thank Alexander Panov for the work done and does not note his contribution to the development of the company's business.

According to Panov, Ru-Center fulfilled all the financial indicators, and in return, in front of the employees, the holding's management brought him out of the office as a criminal.

2013: Fine for 240 million rubles

On April 2, 2013, the Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court found the registrar of Ru-Center guilty of dishonest struggle for domains in the.RF zone. and found guilty - on six counts out of seven. Previous instances alternately sided with the company, then agreed with the antitrust authorities. The latest decision will still force the largest Russian registrar to return 240 million rubles to the budget, but this, apparently, will not entail any other consequences for the market.

The dispute between Ru-Center and the FAS is notable for the fact that there is no legislation that would regulate the operation of domains on the Runet as of April 2013. Therefore, both the department and the courts had to operate with general concepts of the law on the protection of competition and the customs of business circulation. This can explain the lack of a tough position in arbitration.

Ru-Center said it would not recall domains registered in violation of the law. Theoretically, only the person who bought the domain can try through the court to return the money paid for it (the address, however, will also have to be returned).

2012: RBC finalizes Ru-Center takeover deal

In March 2012, the 9th Arbitration Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the lower instance, at the same time deleting one clause from seven from the FAS prosecution.

The conflict, however, did not end there. The next stage - cassation - took place in the Federal Arbitration Court of the Moscow District. In June 2012, this court struck out the remaining six points from the FAS prosecution, and also invalidated the order that Ru-Center must pay the earned 240 million rubles.

On June 19, 2012, RBC announced the successful completion of the transaction to acquire the domain name registrar and hosting provider Ru-Center (CJSC RSIC).

RBC acquired a 100% stake in the company, the deal amounted to about 920 million^[3]. Ru-Center became the sixth business unit in Hosting Community, part of the RBC holding. As a result, the Hosting Community group of companies is the absolute leader in the Russian segments of hosting and domain name registration.

Since the announcement of the intention to acquire Ru-Center in March 2011, RBC has actually carried out operational management of the company. Starting from the second quarter of 2012, Ru-Center's financial results are consolidated into RBC Group's financial results. Ensuring the effective integration of Ru-Center is entrusted to the managing partner of Hosting Community Alexander Panov, who since 2011 has combined this position with the position of General Director of RSIC CJSC. At the same time, Yaroslav Karetsky, who was also a managing partner at Hosting Community, was fired from RBC.

Due to the significant synergistic effect between assets, in the next 1.5-2 years, management expects to increase the profitability of the Hosting Community business. In particular, it is planned to create a single marketing, legal, PR and HR services, optimize the number of production offices.

As of June 2012, RU-CENTER is the largest domain registrar in Russia. Through it, 31% of the domain names of the.RU zone, 42% of the.RF zone and 58% in the.SU zone^[3].

As a result, Ru-Center's revenue for 2012 amounted to approximately $25 million (about 790 million rubles).

2011: Conflict with CC, RBC announces purchase of Ru-Center

On January 26, 2011, at the disposal of CNews^[4] turned out to be a draft decision of the commission created at the Coordination Center of the National Internet Domain (CC, domain zone regulator. RU and. RF) to investigate possible abuses during domain registration in the zone. RF. The commission, which included, in particular, State Duma deputies from United Russia Alexander Khinshtein and Alexander Kogan, considered the decision of the CC Council on the beginning of the open registration of Cyrillic domains on November 11, 2010 to be hasty and not fully worked out. Moreover, according to the commission, the CC was forced to do this under pressure from a state representative on the council - the then deputy minister of communications and mass media of the Aleksei Soldatov (he is the founder of the first Internet provider in the USSR - Relkom).

During the investigation, the commission discovered that Soldatov's sister, Irina Rassolova, owns a 14% stake in the registrar Regional Information Center (Ru-Center, data from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities). Its shareholders are also two more people who were members of the CC council at the time of the launch of the zone. RF: Ru-Center CEO Alexei Lesnikov (23% of the shares, data from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities) and the general director of the Technical Center of the Internet (maintains the root register of domain zones.RU,.SU and.RF) Alexei Platonov. According to the commission, Platonov is the general director and owner of a 50% stake in Fiard, which owns 49% of Ru-Center. Platonov himself confirmed to the commission his affiliation with Fiard and Ru-Center, Soldatov refused to communicate with the commission.

The Commission does not exclude that these persons influenced the management of the CC "in order not to give progress to the investigation of abuses," thanks to which Ru-Center, during the registration of domains in the zone. RF, was able to "seize" a large number of domains. In particular, in the first hours after the start of open registration, Ru-Center registered 60 thousand domain names, of which the registrar then held closed auctions for 24 thousand each (this was done if more than one preliminary application for the same domain name was received in Ru-Center before the start of open registration). According to the commission, such actions violate CC rules prohibiting registrars from setting different prices for domain registration for different clients, and obliging registrars to register domains on the basis of requests from customers.

In addition, since the.RF zone has a ban on changing the owner of the domain within a year after the start of open registration, after the auctions, Ru-Center remained the administrator of the sold domains in the root registry of domain names. Auction winners were registered as administrators only in the internal register of Ru-Center, which, according to the commission, does not give them domain ownership rights and is misleading clients. The leadership of the CC opposed the actions of Ru-Center only after the resignation of Soldatov, trying to block the domains put up for auction.

In general, Ru-Center, according to the conclusions of the commission, acts according to its own, internal rules, which "threatens the stability of the entire domain zone. RF." As a result of the investigation, the commission recommended canceling the registration of domains sold by Ru-Center at closed auctions, and developing a mechanism for overcoming the veto, which can be imposed on the decision of the CC council by the state represented by the representative of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications in the council. The Commission considers it necessary to offer Alexei Lesnikov to voluntarily leave the council (Soldatov resigned from the council in November immediately after his resignation from the post of Deputy Minister of Communications, Platonov resigned from the council on January 1 as part of the planned rotation of council members) and pay attention to the affiliation of the TCI with Ru-Center, which may lead to a conflict of interest to the detriment of the state.

The commission also considers it necessary to change the rules of the CC in order to prevent members of the CC council from lobbying for the interests of individual registrars and prohibiting registrars from registering domains on themselves. In addition, the commission found that the technological platform of the.Ru zone "is 90% used to work out the hunting of registrars for liberating domain names," in connection with which it is recommended to develop rules for secondary registration of domains when several persons claim one liberated domain at once.

The Ru-Center said that they agree with the commission only in part that the decision of the CC council to start open registration was hasty. "But there was more than enough time to work out this decision and coordinate it with government agencies," says company spokesman Andrei Vorobyov. - There was an option when the first time after the start of open registration, domain names will be put up for a "Dutch auction" with a decrease in price, which would avoid conflict situations. But this was opposed by the director of the CC Andrei Kolesnikov. "

At the same time, the management of the CC knew about Ru-Center's intention to hold closed auctions and did not express any complaints about this, the company insists, and the cancellation of their registration will violate the integrity of the Russian segment of the Internet. "Moreover, at the personal request of Kolesnikov, we removed domain names from auctions that coincide with the names of municipalities," says Vorobyov. The Ru-Center confirmed that the sister of Aleksei Soldatov is a shareholder of the company, assuring that the Deputy Minister of Communications did not in any way lobby for the company's interests in the CC council. The Ru-Center notes that a number of other council members are also affiliated with the registrars, in particular, Marina Nikerova, recently elected chairman of the CC council, is the founder of the registrar.Mastername. Kolesnikov did not comment on the conclusions of the commission until their official publication. Representatives of the Ministry of Communications on Wednesday evening were not available for comment.

Late in the evening of January 26, the CC council considered the conclusions of the commission, and generally agreed with them, admitting the fact of violation by Ru-Center. According to a source close to the CC CNews, the council nevertheless expressed disagreement with two recommendations of the commission, the first of which was the requirement for Ru-Center CEO Alexei Lesnikov to voluntarily leave the council. In addition, the question of how to deal with domains sold by Ru-Center at auctions remained unresolved. Consideration of this problem has been postponed until March 1.

"It is not rational to prohibit representatives of registrars from joining the CC council, since these people understand the specifics of the domain business better than others," said Alexander Panov, managing partner of Hosting Community, member of the CC council and the aforementioned commission. In the situation with Ru-Center, the reason for the problems lies in the fact that three of the 13 members of the council were affiliated with this company at once, Panov notes, in connection with which it is advisable to introduce a ban on the presence of more than one person affiliated with any registrar on the council.

• In early March 2011, Kolesnikov proposed to seize the domains sold at auctions and return the money to the winners of the auction, but the CC council decided to finalize these proposals. Meanwhile, a more serious threat looms over Ru-Center: the loss of accreditation. The procedure for depriving the registrar of accreditation just started working in the CC in early 2011, a special commission was created to consider the relevant issues.

As of March 2011, RSIC CJSC is one of the largest registrars in the domain name market, with more than 900 thousand domain names in its management.

• On March 17, 2011, it became known that RBC a group company Hosting Community was buying the Ru-Center group. The deal was planned to be completed by the end of 2011, but this did not happen until June 2012.

$35 million - at this price, former Ru-Center shareholders sold the company to Hosting Community, a source close to RBC shareholders said. According to him, this is about half the price discussed before the scandal in the.rf zone. This was confirmed by two sources close to sellers and buyers^[5].

Who exactly sells the shares, the parties do not specify. At the time of the announcement of the deal, CJSC Fiard had 49% of the RSIC, and Alexey Lesnikov, the former general director of the RSIC, had 46%. But back in January 2011, there was other information in this database: in particular, it was said that 14% of the RSIC belongs to Irina Rassolova, sister of the former Deputy Minister of Communications and Mass Media Aleksei Soldatov. The fact that Rassolova is the co-owner of Ru-Center was also confirmed by the representative of the registrar. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the shareholders of CJSC RSIC at the same time were Ru-Center lawyer Elena Gertseva (14%) and Alexey Lesnikov (23%).

In addition, a share in Ru-Center (49%) through CJSC Fiard was owned by a member of the Council of the Coordination Center for the National Internet Domain (CC) and TCI General Director Alexei Platonov. Fiard belonged to the company Outpost, which in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities was registered to Alexander Kashelevsky, but later Alexei Platonov recognized himself as the owner of a 50% stake in Fiard.

An agreement on the deal was reached back in 2010. Now Hosting Community needed to audit the assets of the acquired company, Panov said. It is assumed that Hosting Community will become the sole owner of all assets of the Ru-Center group, while further activities of Hosting Community in the field of domain name registration will be carried out on the basis of Ru-Center.

As part of the preparation of the deal, the managing partner of Hosting Community, Alexander Panov, became the external manager of Ru-Center, and the general director of Ru-Center, Alexei Lesnikov, moved to the position of his adviser. Panov will be engaged in the observance of the interests of Hosting Community in the process of merger, control of financial flows and any significant events of Ru-Center.

The scandal with the.RF domain zone, in which Ru-Center was involved, did not affect the company's assessment: the parties made a fundamental decision on the deal even before it began, Panov and Ru-Center representative Andrei Vorobyov clarify.

For the proceedings in the conflict around Ru-Center, a commission was created from State Duma deputies and representatives of the Internet public. The commission considered that Ru-Center violated the registration rules, and the former Deputy Minister of Communications Aleksei Soldatov, who was a member of the Council of the CC with the right of veto, lobbied the interests of the company. However, the question of whether or not to select domains sold at auctions has not yet been resolved.

Soldatov and the Ministry of Communications did not comment on these assumptions. Filip Gross, co-owner of the main competitor of Ru-Center of the company, was preparing documents for deputies Reg.ru^[6].

Alexander Panov was a member of this commission. "My position is different from the one that Ru-Center has so far occupied: there were violations of accreditation rules by the company, but no facts of monopoly collusion were found," Panov told CNews. "In the near future, as a member of the CC Council, I intend to initiate a meeting and put forward a proposal to resolve the situation." Koleniskov welcomed the emergence of an initiative to get out of the conflict.

• On April 8, 2011, it became known that the Council of the Coordination Center of the National Internet Domain (CC) approved the proposals of the managing partner of Hosting Community (part of RBC) Alexander Panov regarding the resolution of the controversial situation around domains in the.RF zone, which Ru-Center registered for itself and then sold during closed auctions. Panov, who has recently been also the external manager of Ru-Center, admitted violations of the rules for registering domain names and accreditation of registrars by the autonomous non-profit organization Regional Network Information Center (RNIC SIC) and ZAO RSIC, which are part of the Ru-Center.

In accordance with Panov's proposals, the domains sold at auctions will have to undergo an audit, which will be carried out by the Garant-Park-Telecom company, which is part of the Hosting Community, and the Eshel certification organization certified by the FSTEC. This is necessary in order to check the past auctions for violations, in particular, for the use of auction robots in order to cheat the price, explains the representative of Hosting Community.

At the same time, the CC will begin to collect complaints from Ru-Center users and transmit them to Hosting Community for individual consideration. At the end of the audit, the rights of domain administration will be rewritten for the winners of auctions (formally, Ru-Center remains their administrators now). If desired, users who win auctions will be able to claim a refund. Such domain names will be quarantined, their further fate has not yet been decided. Earlier, Ru-Center was threatened with tougher sanctions.

• On July 1, 2011, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) established the fact of unfair competition from the Regional Network Information Center CJSC (RSIC, Ru-Center brand) during the initial registration of domains in the RF zone in November 2010. This was told to Vedomosti by the deputy head of the FAS Anatoly Golomolzin#^[5]

Also, according to him, Ru-Center coordinated the actions of other registrars. We are talking about a scheme used by Ru-Center in order to bypass the restrictions on domain registration introduced by the Coordination Center of the National Internet Domain (CC). According to CC rules, one company could register no more than 4,800 domains per hour. But Ru-Center agreed with other registrars who registered domain names in the interests of its clients, and thus took possession of more than 65,000 names. This is much more than what could be registered in conditions of fair competition, Golomolzin notes.

According to him, the FAS also revealed a violation: RSIC CJSC entered into an agreement with the autonomous non-profit organization of the same name, according to which they sold domain names registered in violation of the law at auctions. Ru-Center's income from all illegal operations amounted, according to the calculations of the FAS, to 239.9 million rubles. and will be transferred entirely to the federal budget. In addition, an additional fine can be imposed on the registrar - up to 15% of his revenue for 2010. In the near future, the FAS will send the results of inspections to law enforcement agencies and they may also find other violations in the actions of Ru-Center, Golomolzin does not exclude.

Ru-Center representative Andrei Vorobyov found it difficult to say whether the company will appeal the FAS verdict: this will be decided by the registrar's shareholder, the Hosting Community group (controlled by RBC). Ru-Center challenged the decision in the arbitration court.

• On November 1, 2011, it became known that the Moscow Arbitration Court overturned the decision of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), which in July 2011 recognized the Ru-Center domain registrar as a violator of the Law "On Protection of Competition" and ordered him to pay 239.36 million rubles to the budget. The fact that the court fully satisfied the claim of Ru-Center against the FAS, "Vedomosti" was told by the representative of Ru-Center Andrei Vorobyov. This is confirmed by the RAPSI agency, whose correspondent was present at the court session (it ended on November 1 late in the evening)^[6]

What specifically guided the court, canceling the decision of the FAS, is not yet clear - only the operative part has been announced, says Ru-Center CEO Alexander Panov. Ru-Center lawyers made several basic arguments during this process. Firstly, the FAS incorrectly calculated the volume of the domain registration market and did not take into account international norms governing this activity, says Panov. Secondly, there were no agreed actions of the registrars: each of them primarily processed the applications of their clients, and only then - applications from Ru-Center. During the auction, the cost of domain names was not set by Ru-Center, but by the users themselves who bid. And the large number of domains registered on the first day (more than 65,000) is explained, according to Panov, by the large flow of pre-orders - more than 120,000.

• In December 2011, it became known that the contradictions between Ru-Center and CC subsided, but not for long: in the fall of 2011, CC adopted new rules for registering domains in the.Ru and RF zones, which oblige registrars to ensure the possibility of registering exempt domains to customers of their competitors and prohibit them from being auctioned. This approach is not beneficial, first of all, to Ru-Center, which, being the largest registrar, through auctions was able to maintain the service of many of the liberating domains.

2010: Scam with domains in the.RF zone. Revenue of $20 million

In the fall of 2010, before the start of open registration in the domain of the Russian Federation, when the Coordination Center and personally Andrei Kolesnikov asked the RU-CENTER management to give priority to the very municipal applications, the appearance of which was provoked by RU-CENTER itself, Alexei Lesnikov refused to do this, and all these domain names got to the internal RU-CENTER auction. And these domains were transferred to municipalities only after the mass appearance in the media of letters from representatives of these bodies - that is, not of their own free will, but "under pressure from the public."

If you look at the chronology of events, the situation with the auction in the domain. RF developed as follows: back in 2009, after the acceptance of the Russian application for the Russian domain by ICANN, the Coordination Center planned to introduce this domain in several stages, including before the start of open registration, to conduct a period of premium registrations (a period with a phased reduction in the cost of services for registering second-level domain names in the.RF domain), i.e. the same notorious "Dutch auction." And until the fall of 2010, it was precisely this way of distributing domain names in the Russian Federation. But at the end of summer, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) opposed this, i.e. the state, therefore, at the beginning of September 2010, the CC council decided not to hold an auction - by the way, the then state representative on the council Aleksei Soldatov insisted on this . It is noteworthy that a member of the CC council and director of RU-CENTER Alexei Lesnikov also voted in favor of the decision to cancel the auction. He prefers to keep silent about this, he is silent about the fact that, in accordance with the rules of the council of the Coordination Center, he, as a member of the council, had the opportunity to gather an unscheduled meeting of the council and defend his point of view, which he later so actively promoted.

After this event, RU-CENTER, having officially opposed the "big" auction, began to prepare the auction "at home," so to speak, privately. This is understandable: the general auction for this company was simply unprofitable, but after its cancellation, the chances of RU-CENTER to obtain a large number of "tasty" domains and further enrichment due to their actual resale from the company increased significantly. The Coordination Center knew about the upcoming auctions, so it posted an open letter to users on its website, which was immediately published by many media outlets. Attempts by the RU-CENTER leadership to find justification for their actions in the words of the director of the CC Andrei Kolesnikov do not stand up to criticism: the only news that says that Kolesnikov allegedly supported the auctions by the registrars himself has no confirmation. Not a single journalist who was present at the press conference, according to the results of which the news was written, gave these words anymore - only a representative of this respected news agency "distinguished himself," who either misunderstood something, or did not hear, or even confused the author of the quote. In all his interviews, which, before the launch of registration in the domain zone of the Russian Federation, were published a lot, Andrei Kolesnikov consistently spoke out against individual registrars holding their own auctions and warned of possible unpleasant consequences for both registrars and users.

Preparations for its own auctions were carried out by RU-CENTER earlier: for example, in May 2010, when RU-CENTER tried to arrange closed auctions for trademark owners, the Coordination Center was forced to freeze disputed domains until violations were eliminated. Then RU-CENTER explained this with a "technical failure" and stopped the violations, rehearsing the launch of its auction and calculating the possible consequences of such actions.

The unfinished rules for holding an auction in the domain of the Russian Federation are what is most often called one of the main reasons for refusing to hold an auction and is reproached to the director of the CC. But there is one cunning detail here: RU-CENTER director Alexei Lesnikov, who later scolded these rules and called them "crooked," was one of the members of the very working group of the committee of registrars of the CC, which developed these rules. What prevented Lesnikov from making the rules better and "straighter" is not clear. Unless personal greed: according to information from some council members and from CC employees, Lesnikov demanded $40,000 for participation in the development of these rules, for which he was refused: the budget of the Coordination Center does not provide funds for such purposes.

Claiming that RU-CENTER was guided exclusively by the interests of its users during auctions, its representatives, to put it mildly, were cunning. For example, take the same list of "auction" domains. When RU-CENTER was asked to provide a list of unfortunate "owners" of domain names won at the auction in order to have information about these actual administrators and in which case be able to restore their right to domain names, RU-CENTER sent... a plate with the names of sixty-thousand-plus domains in XN-- format -: without details, contacts, names or at least some signs by which these "owners" could be established. That is, today these "owners" are recorded only in the local RU-CENTER registry, and in the main registry, where data on all domain name administrators in the Russian domain are collected, there is only one administrator for 62,000 domains - RU-CENTER. And there is no way to know who all these people who won the auctions are, how much they paid, whether there was any deception from the auction organizers. Well, in addition, the list of domain names that RU-CENTER registered for itself hardly reflected the interests of ordinary users: проститутки.рф domains and several hundred more similar ones registered by RU-CENTER are clearly not required by an ordinary runet.

As for the international experience, which RU-CENTER and its representatives so like to refer to, there is practically no international experience in holding auctions in new country (ccTLD) domains. There are two reasons: firstly, the vast majority of the national domains that exist today were "launched" long before that, as a domain space began to interest the public and business of these countries, and therefore all the "most delicious" domains are quite in accordance with the rules and ICANN, and the national registrars received those who were the first to fuss and understand, that a domain name is not just a registry entry, and a real source of additional income, popularity and the possibility of influencing others. Secondly, in accordance with ICANN recommendations, "the applicant must demonstrate his readiness to manage the root domain on the principles of equality and equal access for the local Internet public. The registration rules should clearly state that all people should be able to register domains with equal conditions, without giving any preferences to a certain segment of the Internet public. This is not considered to be correct if domain registration is limited only to the people of the country that the domain serves. " The constantly cited example with the restart of the Colombian CO domain and the fact that it was the auction held during the restart that helped to avoid scandals and proceedings in this domain zone is completely incorrect. First of all, the state spoke out for holding the auction in this domain zone, which took an active part in the formation of both the rules for holding the auction and (importantly) the rules for distributing the profits received from the auction. There are no more examples of auctions in country domains - in the EU domain, which they also like to refer to in RU-CENTER, the auction was not held as such, a number of "especially valuable" domain names were implemented by the domain administrator at an increased price. As for the example with the.ASIA domain, it is generally a public domain (gTLD) and was allocated to the operator by ICANN on quite commercial terms.

On November 11, 2010, the period of priority registration of domains in the Cyrillic zone of the Russian Federation expired and free registration began - from 12 pm on November 11, anyone could buy a domain in the zone of the Russian Federation.

In such a situation, cybersquatters are usually activated - companies and people who "capture" domains for their subsequent resale. In order to prevent them, the ANO "Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet" (CC), which establishes the rules for the operation of the domains.ru and.RF, introduced several restrictions. In particular, administrators who acquire domains for the first time were forbidden to transfer addresses to other persons within a year. The restrictions also affected registrars: each of the two dozen accredited companies was allocated a quota of 4,800 processed applications per hour. Moreover, only Russian companies and citizens could buy domains for the first year.

Despite the fact that part of the professional community belonged to the creation of a Cyrillic zone with skepticism (among the counterarguments was called, for example, the inability to work with the site address on computers without an appropriate layout), the launch was successful. In the first 12 hours, 207 thousand addresses were registered, and by November 18, 2010, their number had exceeded half a million. At the same time, the first claims to Ru-Center appeared: it accounted for the largest share of registrations in the new zone.

During the start of the procedure for open registration of domains in the zone. RF, Ru-Center collected preliminary applications for 25 thousand domains and put them up for auction, thus withdrawing 366 million rubles. The general director of KCAndrei Kolesnikov considered such actions a violation of the rules, since the domain must be registered in the interests of the first applicants, moreover, the registrar does not have the right to register domains for himself. But Kolesnikov's demand to stop auctions was ignored by Ru-Center.

Director of the Center for Strategic Studies "Other Europe" Pavel Levushkan in July 2011 commented on "NI"^[5]:

"Ru-Center actions are a classic example of cybersquatting. Having paid for the most popular domain names at only 70 rubles. at cost, the company bought them and sold at least 25 thousand domains at closed auctions at an average price of 5-7 thousand rubles. for each. "

Already on November 19, 2010, a week after the start of open registration, FAS she opened a case on violation by registrars of the law on competition when working with domains in the.RF zone. As he wrote, Kommersant the situation was studied at an inter-ministerial meeting with the participation of representatives, and Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media FSB MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS even the presidential administration.

The events that took place on November 11, after an investigation by the FAS, were described as follows: the very CJSC, which operates under the Ru-Center brand, conspired with six CC-accredited companies to register domains in its name (among the participants in the conspiracy was ANO "RSIC" - an organization liquidated in 2011 that operated under the Ru-Center brand in parallel with the eponymous CJSC). In the first 12 hours, seven companies registered a total of 115 thousand addresses, and almost 71 thousand of them fell on the share of RSIC CJSC. As a result, Ru-Center, already the largest registrar of Runet, received the largest share of domains in.RF.

The registrar "booked" tens of thousands of addresses, of course, for a reason. Ru-Center arranged closed auctions in which the cost of domains was limited only by the solvency of the users and companies applying for them (for example, Russian Standard Bank paid 5.8 million rubles for 24 addresses - an average of 242 thousand rubles for each). Thus, the FAS emphasized, the registrar increased the demand for its services: a user who wanted to buy a domain "clogged" for Ru-Center was forced to participate in the auction. And since in accordance with the rules established by the CC, the domain administrator could not transfer his right for a year, Ru-Center introduced the concept of "owner." In practice, this meant that the buyer made an agreement with the registrar, received the status of the owner of the address, but did not become his formal administrator (however, a year later, when the restrictions were lifted, the registrar gave the right to administer the buyers).

The antimonopoly department also pointed out that none of the Ru-Center competitors registered addresses on such a scale, and this, according to the FAS, indicates a violation by the registrar of the principles of integrity, reasonableness and fairness.

In November 2010, when information about the initiation of the case appeared, representatives of the registrar presented their vision of the situation. The company acknowledged that it did register for itself through competitors a large number of domains, but emphasized that it did so for the good of its customers. Receiving several preliminary applications for the same domain, Ru-Center chose not to issue it to the one who was first in line, but to arrange a closed auction. According to the company, this made it possible to fairly distribute domains among those wishing, without putting them in the hands of quick speculators.

Ru-Center's revenue in 2010 amounted to about $20 million, the source familiar with its managers knows^[5].

2009: Rapid loss of market share

The situation began to change only with the arrival of Andrei Kolesnikov, director of the CC. He at one time stood at the origins of the creation of a distributed registration system in the RU domain and was one of the "founding fathers" of the Coordination Center. And his activities were largely aimed precisely at somehow reducing the RU-CENTER monopoly and providing conditions for the emergence of new registrars and more intensive development of those that already existed at that time. For a year and a half of its work, 5 new registrars appeared, and the market share that RU-CENTER occupied at that time in the RU domain decreased to 33%. It is clear that such a policy greatly worried the leadership of RU-CENTER - this is not only a blow to the image of the company, which, in fact, until 2009, looked like the main and almost the only carrier of the RU domain, but also a very tangible decrease in revenues.

The launch of the new domain of Russia of the Russian Federation was considered by the leadership of this registrar as an opportunity to take revenge and restore both its monopoly on the national domain and the level of its income. Well, for this, of course, it was necessary by all truths and untruths to ensure that the domain of the Russian Federation was associated among Runet users exclusively with RU-CENTER, and not with other registrars, and even more so not with the Coordination Center.

For this, RU-CENTER began the most active promotion of the Russian domain, both in completely legal and open ways, and not entirely honest ways, which will be discussed below. Actually, until a certain point, this registrar behaved like any other company that wants to get ahead of its competitors and take the maximum market share. But the methods by which RU-CENTER acted cannot always be called honest.

For example, in the spring of 2009, RU-CENTER sent several thousand letters to various state and municipal structures with proposals to choose RU-CENTER as a registrar, where it indicated that applications for domains should be sent to the Coordination Center, and copies should be sent to RU-CENTER. As a result, the Coordination Center received 864 applications with a request to register 7161 domains, of which 491 for municipal bodies. At the same time, Lesnikov, as a member of the council, knew that the provision on reserving domains for state needs had not yet been adopted by the CC council and that this list would be limited only to federal authorities, and municipal formations authorities would not receive any advantages. The coordination center then had to allocate a significant part of the CC resources to process these request letters and to explain the inability to satisfy most of them. RU-CENTER thus tried to get customers whose presence would significantly increase the status of this registrar as "state."

2008: Domain parking. Revenue 80 million rubles, profit - 34 million

Financial indicators (RAS, 2008^[5]:

• revenue - 80.8 million rubles,
• net profit - 34.3 million rubles.

In 2008, RU-CENTER launched a new service - "Domain Parking."

2003: The company owns 87% of the domain name market

During the first years of the Coordination Center, its activities absolutely did not contradict the business interests of RU-CENTER: despite the appearance of other registrars on the market, RU-CENTER, together with RosNIIROS (which left part of the domains to itself) at the end of 2003, owned 87.4% of the domain name market in the RU domain. The increase in the number of registrars did not greatly affect the redistribution of the market - all attempts by the Coordination Center to somehow change the situation and enable new registrars to work normally in the market ran into the active resistance of members of the council and board of the CC, who represented RU-CENTER.

2001: Ru-Center and CC instead of RosNIIRos

Since 2001, the process of demonopolization of the domain market began: RosNIIRos stopped registering and transferred the relevant functions to Ru-Center, and the Coordination Center (CC) of the.RU domain was created for accreditation of registrars.

It was by the decision of the Coordination Group that the scheme for registering domains in the RU zone was changed: RosNIIROS, remaining the technical center of the Russian national domain, transferred the registration functions to independent companies. But at the same time, members of the CG, which were directly related to RosNIIROS, among whom was Alexey Lesnikov, the future director of RU-CENTER, created CJSC RSITS (RU-CENTER trademark), where all assets of RosNIIROS related to the database (register) of domain names in the RU zone were safely and without any tenders were transferred in 2001. RosNIIROS thus tried to maintain its monopoly on the RU zone, giving itself another name. Among these assets was, by the way, the domain name of the nic.ru, the administrator of which, as world practice shows, is usually the national registry, and not one of the registrars. So RU-CENTER from the very moment of its formation considered itself and positioned itself on the market precisely as a national registry, considering the Coordination Center of the national domain a kind of "tribute" to network democracy.

Since 2001, RU-CENTER's domain registration activities have been insured by OSAO Ingosstrakh"."

1994-2000: RosNIIRos is the only domain registrar

The history of Ru-Center begins with the Russian Research Institute for the Development of Public Relations (RosNIIRos), which in 1994 became the administrator and only registrar in the domain zone.ru.

In the late 90s, the issue of creating an institute of independent registrars in the RU zone arose in full growth [Coordination Group http://www.cgroup.ru/index.html], which then informally oversaw the RU zone, grew from 7 to 28 participants, and an increasing number of companies were not satisfied with the monopoly of RosNIIROS on the Russian domain business.

Awards

RU-CENTER was awarded the "Runet Prize 2007" in the nomination "Technologies and Innovations" for the Auction.nic.ru project - the first Russian domain name auction, providing users with civilized services of the secondary domain market.

See also

Domain Registration (Russian Market)

Notes