Yahoo: An Important Historical Milestone
August 5, 2025
Sorry, no smart software involved. A dinobaby’s own emergent thoughts.
I read “What Went Wrong for Yahoo.” At one time, my team and I followed Yahoo. We created The Point (Top 5% of the Internet) in the early 1990s. Some perceived The Point as a variant. I suppose it was, but we sold the property after a few years. The new owners, something called CMGI, folded The Point into Lycos, and — poof — The Point was gone.
But Yahoo chugged along. The company became the poster child for the Web 1 era. Web search was not comprehensive, and most of the “search engines” struggled to deal with several thorny issues:
- New sites were flooding the Web One Internet. Indexing was a bottleneck. In the good old days, one did not spin up a virtual machine on a low cost vendor in Romania. Machines and gizmos were expensive, and often there was a delay of six months or more for a Sun Microsystems Sparc. Did I mention expensive? Everyone in search was chasing low cost computer and network access.
- The search-and-retrieval tools were in “to be” mode. If one were familiar with IBM Almaden, a research group was working on a system called Clever. There were interesting techniques in many companies. Some popped up and faded. I am not sure of the dates but there was Lycos, which I mentioned, Excite, and one developed by the person who created Framemaker, among others. (I am insufficiently motivated too chase down my historical files, and I sure don’t want to fool around trying to get historical information from Bing, Google, Yandex, and (heaven help me! Qwant). The ideas were around, but it took time for the digital DNA to create a system that mostly worked. I wish I could remember the system that emerged from Cambridge University, but I cannot.
- Old-fashioned search methods like those used by NASA Recon, SDC Orbit, Dialog, and STAIRS were developed to work on bounded content, precisely structured, indexed or “tagged” in today’s jargon, and coded for mainframes. Figuring out how to use smaller machines was not possible. In my lectures from that era, I pointed out that once something is coded, sort of works, and seems to be making money — changes is not conceivable. Therefore, the systems with something that worked sailed along like aircraft carriers until they rusted and sank.
What’s this got to do with Yahoo?
Yahoo was a directory. Directories are good because the content is bounded. Yahoo did not exercise significant editorial control. The Point, on the other hand, was curated like the commercial databases with which I was associated: ABI/INFORM, Business Dateline (the first online information service which corrected erroneous information after a content object went live), Pharmaceutical News Index, and some others we sold to Cambridge Scientific Abstracts.
Indexing the Web is not bounded. Yahoo tried to come up with a way to index what was a large amount of digital content. Adding to Yahoo’s woes was the need to indexed changed content or the “deltas” as we called them in our attempt at The Point to sound techno-literate.
Because of the cost and revenue problems, decisions at Yahoo — according to the people whom we knew and with whom we spoke — went like this:
- Assemble a group with different expertise
- State the question, “What can we do now to make money?”
- Gather ideas
- Hold a meeting to select one or two
- Act on the “best ideas”
The flaw in this method is that a couple of smart fellows in a Stanford dorm were fooling around with Backrub. It incorporated ideas from their lectures, what they picked up about new ideas from students, and what they read (no ChatGPT then, sorry).
I am not going to explain what Backrub at first did not do (work reliably despite the weird assemblage of computers and gear the students used) and focus on the three ideas that did work for what became Google, a pun on a big number’s name:
- Hook mongrel computers to indexing when those computers were available and use anything that remotely seemed to solve a problem. Is that an old router? Cool, let’s use that. This was a very big idea because fooling around with computer systems could kill those puppies with an errant instruction.
- Find inspiration in the IBM Clever system; that is, determine relevance by looking at links to a source document. This was a variation on Gene Garfield’s approach to citation analysis
- Index new Web pages when the appeared. If the crawler / indexer crashed, skip the page and go to the next url. The dorm boys looked at the sites that killed the crawler and figured out how to accommodate those changes; thus, the crawler / indexer became “smart”. This was a very good idea because commercial content indexing systems forced content to be structured a certain way. However, in the Web 1 days, rules were either non existent, ignored, or created problems that creators of Web pages wrote around.
Yahoo did none of these things.
Now let me point out Yahoo’s biggest mistake, and, believe me, the company is an ideal source of insight about what not to do.
Yahoo acquired GoTo.com. The company and software emerged from IdeaLab, I think. What GoTo.com created was an online version of a pay-to-play method. The idea was a great one and obvious to those better suited to be the love child of Cardinal Richelieu and Cosimo de’ Medici. To keep the timeline straight, Sergey Brin and Larry Page did the deed and birthed Google with the GoTo.com (Overture) model to create Google’s ad foundation. Why did Google need money? The person who wrote a check to the Backrub boys said, “You need to earn money.” The Backrub boys looked around and spotted the GoTo method, now owned by Yahoo. The Backrub boys emulated it.
Yahoo, poor old confused Yahoo, took legal action against the Backrub boys, settled for $1 billion, and became increasingly irrelevant. Therefore, Yahoo’s biggest opportunity was to buy the Backrub boys and their Google search system, but they did not. Then Yahoo allowed their GoTo to inspire Google advertising.
From my point of view, Cardinal Richelieu and Cosimo were quite proud that the two computer science students, some of the dorm crowd, and bits and pieces glued together to create Google search emerged as a very big winner.
Yahoo’s problem is that committee think in a fast changing, high technology context is likely to be laughably wrong. Now Google is Yahoo-like. The cited article nails it:
Buying everything in sight clearly isn’t the best business strategy. But if indiscriminately buying everything in sight would have meant acquiring Google and Facebook, Yahoo might have been better off doing that rather than what it did.
Can Google think like the Backrub boys? I don’t think so. The company is spinning money, but the cash that burnishes Google leadership’s image comes from the Yahoo, GoTo.com, and Overture model. Yahoo had so many properties, the Yahooligans had zero idea how to identify a property with value and drive that idea forward. How many “things” does Google operate now? How many things does Facebook operate now? How many things does Telegram operate now? I think that “too many” may hold a clue to the future of these companies. And Yahooooo? An echo, not the yodel.
Stephen E Arnold, August 5, 2025
Bubble? What Bubble? News Bubble, Financial Bubble, Social Media Bubble?
August 5, 2025
We knew the AI hype was extreme. Now one economist offers a relatable benchmark to describe just how extreme it is. TechSpot reports, “The AI Boom is More Overhyped than the 1990s Dot-Com Bubble, Says Top Economist.” Writer Daniel Sims reveals:
“As tech giants pour more money into AI, some warn that a bubble may be forming. Drawing comparisons to the dot-com crash that wiped out trillions at the turn of the millennium, analysts caution that today’s market has become too reliant on still-unproven AI investments. Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, recently argued that the stock market currently overvalues a handful of tech giants – including Nvidia and Microsoft – even more than it overvalued early internet companies on the eve of the 2000 dot-com crash. The warning suggests history could soon repeat itself, with the buzzword ‘dot-com’ replaced by ‘AI.’”
Paint us unsurprised. We are reminded:
“In the late 1990s, numerous companies attracted venture capital in hopes of profiting from the internet’s growing popularity, and the stock market vastly overvalued the sector before solid revenue could materialize. When returns failed to meet expectations, the bubble burst, wiping out countless startups. Slok says the stock market’s expectations are even more unrealistic today, with 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratios now exceeding the peak of the dot-com bubble.”
See the write-up for more about price-to-earnings ratios and their relationship to bubbles, complete with a handy bar chart. Sims notes the top 10 firms’ ratios far exceed the rest of the index, illustrating their wildly unrealistic expectations. Slok’s observations echo concerns raised by others, including Baidu CEO Robin Li. Last October, Li predicted only one percent of AI firms will survive the bubble’s burst. Will those top 10 firms be among them? On the plus side, Li expects a more realistic and stable market will follow. We are sure the failed 99 percent will take comfort in that.
Cynthia Murrell, August 5, 2025
Yep, Google Is Innovative
August 4, 2025
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. Sorry. Not even smart software can help this reptilian thinker.
I read the weird orange newspaper story “Google’s AI Fight Is Moving to New Ground.” What? Google has been forced to move to new ground. What’s this “is moving” progressive tense stuff? (You will have to pay to read this article. The good old days of handing out orange newspapers on Sixth Avenue in Midtown are long, long gone.)
The orange newspaper says:
Being presented with ready-made answers means they [Google’s users of its Web search service] are less likely to click on links, of course — according to Pew Research in the US, about half as likely. But that hasn’t stopped solid growth in search advertising revenue.
Perhaps the missing angle is an answer to this question, “Where are advertisers supposed to go? The Saturday Evening Post, the Stephen Colbert Show, or TikTok- and Telegram-type services?”
How about this statement:
Google’s investors can at least draw heart from signs that their company is starting to find its innovative spark. Project Mariner, a prototype it showed off two months ago, closely echoes ChatGPT agent.
Innovation is “me too”? What?
And here’s another statement I circled:
But the lock on advertising that Google has long enjoyed thanks to search is starting to loosen, leaving it to fight on a new battlefield against AI apps — and not just those from OpenAI.
Many outfits are struggling. One example is General Motors. Another is traditional print publications in the US. With strong revenue growth on intellectual gold mines like YouTube, the “lock” is wobbly. Give me a break.
Management by MBA with blue chip consulting experience maximize revenue the old fashioned way: Automation, tougher deals, and fierce protection of walled garden revenue streams.
There is a reason a number of countries are engaged in legal dust ups with Google. How did that work out in the UK for Foundem.com?
Stephen E Arnold, August 4, 2025
Job Hunting. Yeah, About That …
August 4, 2025
It seems we older generations should think twice before criticizing younger adults’ employment status. MSN reports, ‘Gen Z Is Right About the Job Hunt—It Really Is Worse than It Was for Millennials, with Nearly 60% of Fresh-Faced Grads Frozen Out of the Workforce.’ A recent study from Kickresume shows that, while just 25% of millennials and Gen X graduates had trouble finding work right out of college, that figure is now at a whopping 58%. The tighter job market means young job-seekers must jump through hoops we elders would not recognize. Reporter Emma Burleigh observes:
“It’s no secret that landing a job in today’s labor market requires more than a fine-tuned résumé and cover letter. Employers are putting new hires through bizarre lunch tests and personality quizzes to even consider them for a role.”
To make matters worse, these demeaning tests are only for those whose applications have passed an opaque, human-free AI review process. Does that mean issues of racial, gender, age, and socio-economic biases in AI have been solved? Of course not. But companies are forging ahead with the tools anyway. In fact, companies jumping on the AI train may be responsible for narrowing the job market in the first place. Gee, who could have guessed? The write-up continues:
“It’s undeniably a tough job market for many white-collar workers—about 20% of job-seekers have been searching for work for at least 10 to 12 months, and last year around 40% of unemployed people said they didn’t land a single job interview in 2024. It’s become so bad that hunting for a role has become a nine-to-five gig for many, as the strategy has become a numbers game—with young professionals sending in as many as 1,700 applications to no avail. And with the advent of AI, the hiring process has become an all-out tech battle between managers and applicants. Part of this issue may stem from technology whittling down the number of entry-level roles for Gen Z graduates; as chatbots and AI agents take over junior staffers’ mundane job tasks, companies need fewer staffers to meet their goals.”
Some job seekers are turning to novel approaches. We learn of one who slipped his resume into Silicon Valley firms by tucking it inside boxes of doughnuts. How many companies he approached is not revealed, but we are told he got at least 10 interviews that way. Then there is the German graduate who got her CV in front of a few dozen marketing executives by volunteering to bus tables at a prominent sales event. Shortly thereafter, she landed a job at LinkedIn.
Such imaginative tactics may reflect well on those going into marketing, but they may be less effective in other fields. And it should not take extreme measures like these, or sending out thousands of resumes, to launch one’s livelihood. Soldiering through higher education, often with overwhelming debt, is supposed to be enough. Or it was for us elders. Now, writes Burleigh:
“The age-old promise that a college degree will funnel new graduates into full-time roles has been broken. ‘Universities aren’t deliberately setting students up to fail, but the system is failing to deliver on its implicit promise,’ Lewis Maleh, CEO of staffing and recruitment agency Bentley Lewis, told Fortune.”
So let us cut the young folks in our lives some slack. And, if we can, help them land a job. After all, this may be required if we are to have any hope of getting grandchildren or great-niblings.
Cynthia Murrell, August 4, 2025
Can Clarity Confuse? No, It Is Just Zeitgeist
August 1, 2025
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. Sorry. No smart software can help this reptilian thinker.
In my newsreader this morning, popped this article “Why Navigating Ongoing Uncertainty Requires Living in the Now, Near, and Next.” I was not familiar with Clarity Global. I think it is a public relations firm. The CEO of the firm is a former actress. I have minimal knowledge of PR and even less about acting.
I plunged into the essay. The purpose of the write up, in my opinion, was to present some key points from a conference called “TNW2025.” Conference often touch upon many subjects. One event at which I spoke this year had a program listing on six pages the speakers. I think 90 percent of the people attending the conference were speakers.
The first ideas in the write up touch upon innovation, technology adoption, funding, and the zeitgeist. Yep, zeitgeist.
As if these topics were not of sufficient scope, the write up identifies three themes. These are:
- “Regulation is a core business competency”
- “Partnership is the engine of progress”
- “Culture is critical”.
Notably absent was making money and generating a profit.
What about the near, now, and next?
The near means having enough cash on hand to pay the bills at the end of the month. The now means having enough credit or money to cover the costs of being in business. Recently a former CIA operative invited me to lunch. When the bill arrived, he said, “Oh, I left my billfold at home.” I paid the bill and decided to delete him from my memory bank. He stiffed me for $11, and he told me quite a bit about his “now.” And the next means that without funding there is a greatly reduced chance of having a meaningful future. I wondered, “Was this ‘professional’ careless, dumb, or unprofessional?” (Maybe all three?)
Now what about these themes. First, regulation means following the rules. I am not sure this is a competency. To me, it is what one does. Second, partnership is a nice word, not as slick as zeitgeist but good. The idea of doing something alone seems untoward. Partnerships have a legal meaning. I am not sure that a pharmaceutical company with a new drug is going to partner up. The company is going to keep a low profile, file paperwork, and get the product out. Paying people and companies to help is not a partnership. It is a fee-for-service relationship. These are good. Partnerships can be “interesting.” And culture is critical. In a market, one has to identify a market. Each market has a profile. It is common sense to match the product or service to each market’s profile. Apple cannot sell an iPhone to a person who cannot afford to pay for connectivity, buy apps or music, or plug the gizmo in. (I am aware that some iPhone users steal them and just pretend, but those are potential customers, not “real” customers.)
Where does technology fit into this conference? It is the problem organizations face. It is also the 10th word in the essay. I learned “… the technology landscape continues to evolve at an accelerating page.” Where’s smart software? Where’s non-democratic innovation? Where’s informed resolution of conflict?
What about smart software, AI, or artificial intelligence? Two mentions: One expert at the conference invests in AI and in this sentence:
As AI, regulation and societal expectations evolve, the winners will be those who anticipate change and act with conviction.
I am not sure regulation, partnership, and coping with culture can do the job. As for AI, I think funding and pushing out products and services capture the zeitgeist.
Stephen E Arnold, August 1, 2025
China Smart, US Dumb: Is There Any Doubt?
August 1, 2025
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. Sorry. No smart software can help this reptilian thinker.
I have been identifying some of the “China smart, US dumb” information that I see. I noticed a write up from The Register titled “China Proves That Open Models Are More Effective Than All the GPUs in the World.” My Google-style Red Alert buzzer buzzed and the bubble gum machine lights flashed.
There is was. The “all.” A categorical affirmative. China is doing something that is more than “all the GPUs in the world.” Not only that “open models are more effective” too. I have to hit the off button.
The point of the write up for me is that OpenAI is a loser. I noted this statement:
OpenAI was supposed to make good on its name and release its first open-weights model since GPT-2 this week. Unfortunately, what could have been the US’s first half-decent open model of the year has been held up by a safety review…
But it is not just OpenAI muffing the bunny. The write up points out:
the best open model America has managed so far this year is Meta’s Llama 4, which enjoyed a less than stellar reception and was marred with controversy. Just this week, it was reported that Meta had apparently taken its two-trillion-parameter Behemoth out behind the barn after it failed to live up to expectations.
Do you want to say, “Losers”? Go ahead.
But what outfit is pushing out innovative smart software as open source? Okay, you can shout, “China. The Middle Kingdom. The rightful rulers of the Pacific Rim and Southeast Asia.
That’s the “right” answer if you accept the “all” type of reasoning in the write up.
China has tallied a number of open source wins; specifically, Deepseek, Qwen, M1, Ernie, and the big winner Kimi.
Do you still have doubts about China’s AI prowess? Something is definitely wrong with you, pilgrim.
Several observations:
- The write up is a very good example of the China smart, US dumb messaging which has made its way from the South China Morning Post to YouTube and now to the Register. One has to say, “Good work to the Chinese strategists.”
- The push for open source is interesting. I am not 100 percent convinced that making these models available is intended to benefit non-Middle Kingdom people. I think that the push, like the shift to crypto currency in non traditional finance, is part of an effort to undermine what might be called “America’s hegemony.”
- The obviousness of overt criticism of OpenAI and Meta (Facebook) illustrates a growing confidence in China that Western European information channels can be exploited.
Does this matter? I think it does. Open source software has some issues. These include its use as a vector for malware. Developers often abandon projects, leaving users high and dry with some reaching for their wallet to buy commercial solutions. Open source projects for smart software may have baked in biases and functions that are not easily spotted. Many people are aware of NSO Group’s ability to penetrate communications on a device by device basis. What happens if the phone home ability is baked into some open source software.
Remember that “all.” The logical fallacy illustrates that some additional thinking may be necessary when it comes to embedding and using software from some countries with very big ambitions. What is China proving? Could it be China smart, US dumb?
Stephen E Arnold, August 1, 2025
Microsoft and Job Loss Categories: AI Replaces Humans for Sure
July 31, 2025
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. Sorry. No smart software can help this reptilian thinker.
I read “Working with AI: Measuring the Occupational Implications of Generative AI.” This is quite a sporty academic-type write up. The people cranking out this 41 page Sociology 305 term paper work at Microsoft (for now).
The main point of the 41-page research summary is:
Lots of people will lose their jobs to AI.
Now this might be a surprise to many people, but I think the consensus among bean counters is that humans cost too much and require too much valuable senior manager time to manage correctly. Load up the AI, train the software, and create some workflows. Good enough and the cost savings are obvious even to those who failed their CPA examination.
The paper is chock full of jargon, explanations of the methodology which makes the project so darned important, and a wonky approach to presenting the findings.
Remember:
Lots of people will lose their jobs to AI.
The highlight of the paper in my opinion is the “list” of occupations likely to find that AI displaces humans at a healthy pace. The list is on page 12 of the report. I snapped an image of this chart “Top 40 Occupations with Highest AI Applicability Score.” The jargon means:
Lots of people will lose their jobs to AI.
Here’s the chart. (Yes, I know you cannot read it. Just navigate to the original document and read the list. I am not retyping 40 job categories. Also, I am not going to explain the MSFT “mean action score.” You can look at that capstone to academic wizardry yourself.)
What are the top 10 jobs likely to result in big time job losses? Microsoft says they are:
- People who translate from one language to another
- Historians which I think means “history teachers” and writers of non-fiction books about the past
- Passenger attendants (think robots who bring you a for-fee vanilla cookie and an over-priced Coke with “real cane sugar”)
- People who sell services (yikes, that’s every consulting firm in the world. MBAs, be afraid)
- Writers (this category appears a number of times in the list of 40, but the “mean action score” knows best)
- Customer support people (companies want customers to never call. AI is the way to achieve this goal)
- CNC tool programmers (really? Someone has to write the code for the nifty Chip Foose wheel once I think. After that, who needs the programmer?)
- Telephone operators (there are still telephone operators. Maybe the “mean action score” system means receptionists at the urology doctors’ office?)
- Ticket agents (No big surprise)
- Broadcast announcers (no more Don Wilsons or Ken Carpenters. Sad.)
The 30 are equally eclectic and repetitive. I think you get the idea. Service jobs and work that is repetitive — Dinosaurs waiting to die.
Microsoft knows how to brighten the day for recent college graduates, people under 35, and those who are unemployed.
Oh, well, there is the Copilot system to speed information access about job hunting and how to keep a positive attitude. Thanks, Microsoft.
Stephen E Arnold, July 31, 2025
No Big Deal. It Is Just Life or Death. Meh.
July 31, 2025
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. Sorry. No smart software can help this reptilian thinker.
I am not sure about information from old-fashioned television channels is rock solid, but today what information is? I read “FDA’s Artificial Intelligence Is Supposed to Revolutionize Drug Approvals. It’s Making Up Nonexistent Studies.” Heads up. You may have to pay to read the full write up.
The main idea in the report struck me as:
[Elsa, an AI system deployed by the US Food and Drug Administration] has also made up nonexistent studies, known as AI “hallucinating,” or misrepresented research, according to three current FDA employees and documents seen by CNN. This makes it unreliable for their most critical work, the employees said.
To be fair, some researchers make up data and fiddle with “real” images for some peer reviewed research papers. It makes sense that smart software trained on “publicly available” data would possibly learn that making up information is standard operating procedure.
The cited article does not provide the names and backgrounds of the individuals who provided the information about this smart software. That’s not unusual today.
I did not this anonymous quote:
“Anything that you don’t have time to double-check is unreliable. It hallucinates confidently,” said one employee — a far cry from what has been publicly promised. “AI is supposed to save our time, but I guarantee you that I waste a lot of extra time just due to the heightened vigilance that I have to have” to check for fake or misrepresented studies, a second FDA employee said.
Is this a major problem? Many smart people are working to make AI the next big thing. I have confidence that prudence, accuracy, public safety, and AI user well-being is a priority. Yep, that’s my assumption.
I wish to offer several observations:
- Smart software may need some fine tuning before it becomes the arbiter of certain types of medical treatments, procedures, and compounds.
- AI is definitely free from the annoying hassles of sick leave, health care, and recalcitrance that human employees evidence. Therefore, AI has major benefits by definition.
- Hallucinations are a matter of opinion; for example, humans are creative. Hallucinating software may be demonstrating creativity. Creativity is a net positive; therefore, why worry?
The cited news report stated:
Those who have used it say they have noticed serious problems. For example, it cannot reliably represent studies.
As I said, “Why worry?” Humans make drug errors as well. Example: immunomodulatory drugs like thalidomide. AI may be able to repurpose dome drugs. Net gain. Why worry?
Stephen E Arnold, July 31, 20205
Private Equities and Libraries: Who Knew?
July 31, 2025
Public libraries are a benevolent part of the local and federal governments. They’re awesome places for entertainment, research, and more. Public libraries in the United States have a controversial histories dealing with banned books, being a waste of tax paying dollars, and more. LitHub published an editorial about the Samuels Public Library in Front Royal, Virginia: “A Virginia Public Library Is Fighting Off A Takeover By Private Equity.”
In short, the Samuels Public Library refused to censor books, mostly those dealing with LGBTQ+ themes. The local county officials withheld funding and the library might be run by LS&S, a private equity firm that specializes in any fields including government outsourcing and defense.
LS&S has a bad reputation and the CEO said:
“ ‘There’s this American flag, apple pie thing about libraries,’ said Frank A. Pezzanite, the outsourcing company’s chief executive. He has pledged to save $1 million a year in Santa Clarita, mainly by cutting overhead and replacing unionized employees. ‘Somehow they have been put in the category of a sacred organization.’
…
‘A lot of libraries are atrocious,’ Mr. Pezzanite said. ‘Their policies are all about job security. That’s why the profession is nervous about us. You can go to a library for 35 years and never have to do anything and then have your retirement. We’re not running our company that way. You come to us, you’re going to have to work.’”
The author wrote in response to this quote:
“In their defense, I think some of these businesses think they’re doing the right thing. But the valorization of profit has blinded them to seeing the advantages of the public good as a worthy bottom line. Providing for a community might not be profitable, but that doesn’t make it wrong…Efficiency shouldn’t always be the goal, especially when used as a narrowly defined metonym for profitability. The Samuels Public Library, like so many public institutions around the country, works because it serves something other than money.”
Public libraries are the one institution that should never be ripped off. Maybe a private equity firm could work hand in hand with public libraries so they aren’t ripped off by bad actors? Or …?
Whitney Grace, July 31, 2025
Guess Who Coded the Official Messaging App of Russia
July 30, 2025
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. Sorry. No smart software can help this reptilian thinker.
The Bloomberg story title “Russia Builds a New Web Around Kremlin’s Handpicked Super App” caused me to poke around in the information my team and I have collected about “super apps,” encrypted messaging services, and ways the Kremlin wants to get access to any communication by Russian citizens and those living in the country and across the Russian Federation. The Bloomberg story is interesting, but I want to add some color to what seems to be a recent development.
If you answered the question “Guess who coded the official messaging app of Russia?” by saying, “Pavel and Nikolai Durov,” you are mostly correct. The official messaging act is a revamped version of VKontakte, the the Facebook knock off coded by Pavel and Nikolai Durov. By 2011, Kremlin authorities figured out that access to the content on a real time social media service like VK was a great way to stamp out dissent.
The Durovs did not immediately roll over, but by 2013, Pavel Durov folded. He took some cash, left Nikolai at home with mom, and set off to find a place for hospitable to his views of freedom, privacy, security, and living a life not involving a Siberian prison. Pavel Durov, however, has a way of attracting attention from government officials outside of Russia at this time. He is awaiting trial in France for a number of alleged online crimes, including CSAM. (CSAM is in the news in the US recently as well.)
Ongoing discussions with VK and an “integrator” have been underway for years. The Kremlin contracted with Sber and today’s VK to create a mandatory digital service for Russian citizens and anyone in the country buying a mobile phone in Russia. The idea is that with a mandatory messaging app, the Kremlin could access the data that Pavel Durov refused to produce.
The official roll out of the “new”, government-controlled VK service began in June 2025. On September 1, 2025, the new VK app must be pre-installed on any smartphone or tablet sold in the country. Early reports suggested that about one million users had jumped on the “new” messaging app MAX. Max is the post-Durov version of VKontakte without the Pavel Durov obstinacy and yapping about privacy.
The Russian online service https://PCNews.ru published “Ministry of Digital: Reports That the MAX Messenger Will Be Mandatory for Signing Electronic Documents Are Not True.” The write up reports that the “official” messaging service “MAX” will not be required for Russian is not true.
Earlier this week (July 28, 2025):
… the [Russian] government of the Kemerovo region is officially switching to using the Russian MAX messenger for all work communications. Before this, the national messenger began to be implemented in St. Petersburg, as we have already reported, Novosibirsk and Tatarstan. Depending on the region, the platform is used both in government structures and in the field of education. In Russia they want to ensure free and secure transfer of user data from WhatsApp and Telegram instant messengers to the Russian MAX platform. From September 1, 2025, the Max messenger will have to be pre-installed on all smartphones and tablets sold in Russia. In late June 2025, the developers announced that over one million users had registered with Max.
This means that not everything the Kremlin requires will reside on the super app MAX. From a government security vantage point, the decision is a good one. The Kremlin, like other governments, has information it tries hard to keep secret. The approach works until something like Microsoft SharePoint is installed or an outstanding person like Edward Snowden hauls off some sensitive information.
The Russians appear to be quite enthusiastic about the new government responsive super app. Here’s some data to illustrate the level of the survey sample’s enthusiasm.
“The Attitude of Russians Towards the National Messenger Has Become Known” reports:
- 55% of respondents admitted that they would like their data to be stored on Russian servers
- 85% communicate with loved ones using messaging apps
- 49% watch the news
- 47% of respondents use instant messengers for work or study
- 38% of respondents supported the idea of creating a Russian national messenger
- 26% answered that they rather support it
- 19% of respondents admitted that they were indifferent to this topic.
Other findings included:
- 36% of Russians named independence from the departure of foreign services among the advantages of creating a domestic messenger
- 33% appreciate popularization of Russian developments
- 32% see a positive from increasing data security
- 53% of respondents liked the idea when in one service you can not only communicate, but also use government services and order goods.
Will Russians be able to circumvent the mandatory use of MAX? Almost anything set up to cage online users can be circumvented. The Great Firewall of China after years of chatter does not seem to impede the actions of some people living in China from accessing certain online services. At this time, I can see some bright young people poking around online for tips and tricks related to modern proxy services, commodity virtual private networks, and possibly some fancy dancing with specialized hardware.
What about Telegram Messenger, allegedly the most popular encrypted messaging super app in Russia, the Russian Federation, and a chunk of Southeast Asia? My perception is that certain online habits, particularly if they facilitate adult content, contraband transactions, and money laundering are likely to persist. I don’t think it will take long for the “new” MAX super app to be viewed as inappropriate for certain types of online behavior. How long? Maybe five seconds?
Stephen E Arnold, July 30, 2025
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