Antimonopoly case against Yandex, associated with discrimination of third-party services in search results, ended with a settlement agreement. The relevant document, signed by the FAS, Yandex and the applicants in the case, was approved by the Moscow Arbitration Court.
According to RIA News referring to the FAS, Yandex complied with the requirements contained in the FAS warning, recognizing them as justified. The elimination of discrimination in the search was also confirmed by the applicant companies, including the online services Ivi, Avito, CIAN, Profi.ru, Tutu.ru, Drom.ru, 2GIS and Zoon.
The FAS promised to continue to monitor Yandex’s compliance with the terms of the agreement and control the correctness of the search engine. The relevant data for control will be provided by Yandex itself. In addition, the impartiality of ranking and display of search results must now be confirmed by an independent audit every year.
“The settlement agreement takes into account the position of each interested party,” the news agency quotes the head of the FAS, Maxim Shaskolsky. “This document is also a confirmation of the possibility of self-regulation of digital markets in Russia.”
The applicants complained to the Federal Antimonopoly Service in August 2020 that the Yandex search results in “enriched answers” (they are called “sorcerers” in the search engine itself) only the services of Yandex itself. This deprives the audience of the company, links to the sites of which are located below the “sorcerer”. On April 13, 2021, the FAS opened an antimonopoly case against Yandex, as the search engine did not comply with the regulator’s warning of February 20 and sued. Summer “Yandex” launched “Universal Enriched Responses”, which displays links to various services.
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