Yandex entered into a settlement agreement with Avito, Wildberries, 2GIS, Profi.ru and other companies that in 2020 complained to the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) about the search engine abusing the dominant position of their products in the search results. This was reported by Interfax, citing a source familiar with the details of the agreement.
As part of the agreement, Yandex will pay 1.5 billion rubles. to the non-profit organization Russian Foundation for the Development of Information Technologies, the report says. According to the source of the agency, Yandex also recognized the legality of the FAS refusal to extend the deadline for fulfilling the requirements for enriched answers, the so-called sorcerers. Let’s remind, earlier “Yandex” challenged this decision in arbitration court.
In August 2020, ivi, Avito, Cyan, Profi.ru, and Tutu.ru online services complained that enriched answers often appear higher in search results and allow users to satisfy their request without switching to another page. The FAS stated that “sorcerers” create discriminatory conditions in the Internet search market, as they are available only to the services of Yandex itself. In mid-April, the antimonopoly service initiated a case against Yandex for failure to comply with the requirements to eliminate these violations.
In May, Yandex announced that it would open access to all companies to set up enriched answers in search results. However, the proposed conditions did not suit the competitors. They were dissatisfied with the fact that in exchange for access, the search engine requires them to open a large amount of data and use its payment tools.
About the offers of “Yandex” after the claims to the rules of issuance – in the material “Kommersant”.
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