Avito and members of the coalition of Internet companies will have access to Yandex’s Enriched Answers

Avito, the most popular online classifieds platform in Russia, as part of a coalition of Internet companies, the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) and Yandex, have reached an amicable settlement in a search engine lawsuit.

According to Avito, the amicable agreement confirms that Yandex fulfills all the requirements of the FAS warning issued on February 20, 2021 and provides for additional obligations of Yandex aimed at maintaining competition, including providing the search engine with full access to the Enriched Answers technology .

In addition to Avito, the coalition includes IVI, Drom, Cyan, Profi, ZUN, 2GIS, Tutu.ru.

Let us clarify that Yandex, with the participation of the coalition and the FAS, has developed a set of internal procedures and policies that regulate non-discriminatory access to the Enriched Responses technology. These procedures describe the procedure and terms for connecting independent services to the OO, the criteria that a partner and its content must meet, the procedure for handling complaints from partners, and an audit of Yandex’s compliance with agreed procedures. The new rules will take effect from the moment the settlement agreement is signed. In fact, the changes will become noticeable in 1-2 months, which will be required to complete the technical measures to connect Avito to the Enriched Answers format.

Since the search covers the entire geography of the country, positive changes in it will be visible in every region and at every point. Local players will also be able to be represented in the search with rich answers, and users will be able to see the full palette of offers from services in the corresponding category.

Commenting on the signing of the agreement, Victor Topadze, director for legal affairs and interaction with authorities at Avito, emphasized that “in terms of scale, complexity, the number of participants involved in the process, and the final result, this is an unprecedented antimonopoly case for the domestic digital industry.”

“The coalition, thanks to the position of the FAS, managed to solve the problem in a constructive manner. We believe that the interests of the industry are taken into account, and we expect that this will allow all Internet services to develop in a fair competitive environment, and users will be able to freely choose their favorite services in the Yandex search results using enriched content,” the top manager said.

For his part, the head of the FAS Russia, Maxim Shaskolsky, noted that the goal of his department is “to protect competition in the market, create non-discriminatory conditions for all its participants.” “The settlement agreement takes into account the position of each interested party. This document is also a confirmation of the possibility of self-regulation of digital markets in Russia,” said the head of the antimonopoly service.