Since the start of the Ukraine War, a barrage of western sanctions has crippled the Russian economy and wreaked havoc on its financial system. The country has been largely cut off from the international payment system SWIFT, seen its access to $630 billion in foreign exchange reserves restricted, and watched as more than $17 billion in assets were seized from Russian oligarchs. But for the past eight years, Russia has been preparing for the worst. In June of 2014, just three months after its… Source link
Read More »Digital Markets Act Proposed to Tame Big Tech; Yandex Spark Concerns over Data sent to Russia
In this weekly segment, ExchangeWire sums up key industry updates in media, marketing, and commerce from around the globe. In this edition: European lawmakers propose the Digital Markets Act to tackle antitrust behaviour in Big Tech; Russia’s search engine, Yandex, has sparked security concerns over harvesting users’ data; US representatives propose a new bill to create a digital dollar; and, Meta have hired digital consulting firm Targeted Victory to “orchestrate a nationwide campaign”… Source link
Read More »Western-owned Russian firm helps sites pushing false news profit from ads | Russia
A Russian tech giant mostly owned by western investors is helping websites pushing false claims about the war in Ukraine to make thousands of dollars every day through digital advertising. Yandex is considered Russia’s equivalent to Google, running both a search engine and an extensive digital advertising business. Its deputy CEO, Tigran Khudaverdyan, resigned this month after the European Union imposed sanctions on him. The Bureau for Investigative Journalism has discovered… Source link
Read More »Report: Yandex routing iOS, Android user data to Russia
Over the weekend, Elon Musk said something outlandish. I know what you’re thinking: Be more specific. Well, this time the Tesla CEO indicated he might launch a social network — or, at the very least, wouldn’t rule it out. “Am giving serious thought to this,” he replied to a Twitter user who asked whether Musk would consider building his own rival platform. Musk had earlier criticized Twitter. “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free… Source link
Read More »Yandex is sending data from millions of iOS users to Russia
A report today says that ‘Russian Google’ Yandex is sending data harvested from millions of iOS app users to Russia – whether or not you use the company’s apps. Laws there could compel the company to make the data available to the Russian government. Your data can be grabbed from a wide range of third-party apps which use a developer tool created by Yandex. Developers save time and money by using the Yandex API AppMetrica to obtain analytics data for their app, while the… Source link
Read More »Russia says Azerbaijan enters peacekeepers’ zone in Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku denies it
(Updates with Azerbaijan’s comments) BAKU, March 26 (Reuters) – Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday Azeri armed forces had entered a zone policed by Russian peacekeepers in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, in a violation of an agreement, but Azerbaijan challenged these claims. Russia said it had called on Azerbaijan to pull out its troops, and was “applying efforts” to move forces to their initial positions. It also said Azerbaijan had carried out four drone strikes in… Source link
Read More »Exodus from Russia renews concerns over US pensions investing in emerging markets
Pressure has mounted in recent weeks on U.S. pensions to dump Russian assets, but policymakers scrambling to unwind investments face a bigger moment of truth — what about their holdings in other autocratic regimes? Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted many of the largest public pension plans to quickly divest from Russian securities or trim their exposure to harder-to-exit allocations. The first-of-its-kind move to exit so abruptly put into question the… Source link
Read More »Spotify to fully halt service in Russia by April over media censorship law
Goodbye, Spotify. Hello, Sputnik? Music streaming giant Spotify (SPOT) is the latest to join a growing list of media platforms halting operations in Russia following a law passed by the Kremlin earlier this month that threatens to jail any person or entity spreading “fake” news for up to 15 years. Spotify confirmed to Yahoo Finance that the music streaming giant made the “difficult” decision Friday to suspend its service in the country. The company said it will have to take several… Source link
Read More »Ukrainian CEO turned hacker details the ‘official cyber war’ between Russia and Ukraine
The war between Russia and Ukraine being fought on the battleground — and in cyberspace. Just ask Dyma Budorin, a Ukrainian web security entrepreneur turned cyber warrior currently based in Spain after leaving Kyiv just days before the Russian invasion began. “It’s an official cyberwar between Russia and Ukraine,” Budorin, co-founder and CEO of Hacken, a Ukrainian cybersecurity consulting firm, told Yahoo Finance. Budorin says almost his entire 70-member team relocated. They’re still handling… Source link
Read More »Russia has a $140 billion stockpile of gold, but no one wants to buy it
Alexander Manzyuk/Reuters The fifth-largest stockpile of gold in the world belongs to Russia, valued at nearly $140 billion. As with oil, sanctions are making it very difficult for Russia to trade the precious commodity. Demand for gold is still high within the country as the ruble has crashed to record lows. Like the price of crude oil, gold prices have been on a wild ride since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. And like oil, Russia holds some of the world’s largest reserves of gold — some… Source link
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