Durov, Out For Good From VK.com, Plans A Mobile Social Network Outside Russia

In the drawn-out game of will-he, won’t-he, Pavel Durov, the founder of VKontakte.com, Russia’s top social network with over 100 million users, is now out for good from the company with an unceremonial dismissal conveyed via a newswire report. So what’s next? “I’m likely to start building a mobile social network this year,” Durov tells TechCrunch.

The idea, it seems, is to develop the new, un-named service outside of Russia. He didn’t say this, but I suspect the idea is to build on the groundwork Durov has already laid with Telegram, one of the new breed of mobile messaging apps that encrypt your data to keep it safe from prying eyes.

When we contacted Durov to ask about his future plans, he wrote back saying he was no longer in Russia.

“I’m out of Russia and have no plans to go back,” he wrote in the exchange. “Unfortunately, the country is incompatible with Internet business at the moment.”

Durov says that the latest move from VK.com’s shareholders, which was based on a technicality in how Durov “resigned” a month ago, is the final nail in the coffin for him and the social network. Ironically, the shareholders still appear to be offering a position to Durov as a chief architect.

I’ve learned never to say never in Russia, so who knows what might happen next on this front. But at least for now Durov is saying this is really the end.

“I’m afraid there is no going back,” he said of VK.com, “not after I publicly refused to cooperate with the authorities. They can’t stand me.”

The back-and-forth between Durov has been going on for many months now, and has become a tangle of issues in the process.

They involve not just ownership of the successful company — often called the Facebook of Russia for its popularity and also its user interface design — with Internet powerhouse Mail.ru now controlling a majority of shares, but also what role the government plays in controlling content on VK.com.

In the wake of several political conflicts both domestically and in neighboring countries like Ukraine, VK.com has become a platform for people to rally support for positions, often in defiance of the Kremlin and Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin.

Durov has been resistant to those who have tried to restrict freedom of expression on the platform, and he believes that this is at the heart of the leadership fight, as he told us a month ago, and then re-confirmed in more statements on VK.com last week. You have to wonder how and if the odd appearance by Edward Snowden on Russian TV, on the subject of government surveillance online, sits in relation to all of this.

Even beyond all of that murkiness, the situation is messy. Shareholders have been playing up publicly the role of other issues as spurs for leadership change at VK.com.

There are questions, for example, about where VK.com sits in terms of its wider business — it’s the subject of ongoing negotiations, suits and threats of suits about copyright infringement because VK.com is also a very popular platform for streaming and exchanging media.

And there are Durov’s wider interests, specifically around his Telegram app. Telegram had a surge of interest in the last couple of months because of a perfect storm of sorts: Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp has seen some turn away from the popular messaging app and look around for alternatives; and in general the public has started to become a lot more interested in apps offering “secure” services that do a better job of keeping their data away from commercial and government data gatherers. One of VK.com’s shareholders, United Capital Partners, has criticised Durov’s focus on Telegram at the expense of his attention on VK.com.

For now, it looks like VK.com’s deputy chief executive Boris Dobrodeyev and executive director Dmitry Sergeyev are running the network on an interim basis.

Engage in Creative Tasks Outside Work to Boost Job Performance

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Creative work is not only best for bad moods, but doing creative activities outside of the office can boost your on-the-job performance, says a new study by psychologist Kevin Eschleman of San Francisco State University.

Writing in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, the researchers say:

Creative pursuits away from work seem to have a direct effect on factors such as creative problem solving and helping others while on the job. It can be rare in research to find that what we do in our personal time is related to our behaviors in the workplace, and not just how we feel.

The creative tasks in the above study weren't restricted and employees were free to choose whatever they wanted that led to a sense of self-expression and self-discovery. This ranged from writing short stories to playing video games. Hit the link for the full study.

Creative activities outside work can improve job performance | EurekAlert

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A look at the Android world outside of Google’s control

 

Quinn Dombrowski

The dominance of Android in the smartphone market worldwide is still growing. Google continues to improve the platform. Manufacturers are producing a great range of devices. But the future doesn’t look rosy to everyone. Is there a storm on the horizon? Could forked versions of the platform spell disaster for Google? Is there a real danger it could lose control?

According to ABI Research the platform accrued a 77% market share in Q4 of 2013 and it was on 78% of the nearly 1 billion smartphones that shipped during last year. To get to the juicy part of ABI’s research, the part that has been generating headlines, you have to dig a little deeper and examine the split between Google’s Android and the AOSP (Android Open Source Project).

Taking a closer look at Q4 2013 we find that 25% of the market, or 71 million smartphones, were running forked versions of Android or AOSP. Google’s Android actually accounted for 52% of shipments. That 52% is not to be sniffed at, it compares to 18% for Apple’s iOS and 4% for Microsoft’s Windows Phone, but the 25% for AOSP is very significant. If we set Google’s Android aside with its 52% then we find that AOSP accounted for more shipments than the whole rest of the market put together.

China, India, Russia, and other markets

There is one major driving force behind this trend. It’s very simple. Smartphone sales in China, India, Russia, and a few other markets are incredibly high right now and they are continuing to grow very quickly. These are markets where Google is a foreign company up against good local competition. Take a look at this chart, compiled by The Guardian’s Charles Arthur.

China is the biggest market by far. Google has fought a long and highly publicized censorship battle with the government there and after a serious cyber-attack back in 2010 it even suggested that it might close down its Chinese operations. Its popularity in China dropped significantly after that and ultimately Google backed down.

If we take a look at the figures for page-views in China in 2013, according to Tech In Asia, then it becomes clear how bad things are for Google. Baidu is dominant, although its share dropped to 63.1% in December 2013 as Qihoo soared up to 22.5%. Google managed just 1.6%.

Baidu and Qihoo both have app stores, not to mention web browsers, music streaming services, and anti-virus apps. You may recognize the name Qihoo as the company already offers a great range of security apps, like 360 Mobile Safe in the Play Store. There’s every chance that these players will go head-to-head with Google beyond China’s borders in the future.

Google’s fortunes in India appear to be brighter and it can claim 90% of the search market. This Forbes India piece gives an insight into the efforts that Google has made to capture and retain the Indian market, which has huge potential for growth.

In Russia, Google trails way behind Yandex on Web search, Bloomberg suggests 62% share for Yandex to Google’s 27% and it also points out that Huawei and Explay (accounting for roughly 6% of smartphone sales in Russia) will pre-install Yandex services instead of Google services on their devices.

Other Android forks

Closer to home the big threat is currently Amazon. If we glance at the latest tablet stats from Gartner we find that Amazon has a 4.8% market share for 2013. That’s down from 6.6% in 2012, but Android grew 127% over the year to take the number one spot in tablets, so Amazon is still making gains. It is easy to sideload Google services onto Amazon tablets, but we have no idea how many people do this.

The threat isn’t confined to tablets as we also have Nokia’s Android X phones on the horizon now, although, once again, it is easy to sideload Google services.

What does this mean for Google?

The growth of AOSP without Google services is going to impact on the company monetizing the Android platform. It’s a lot of potential revenue being siphoned off by competitors.

Let’s not get carried away here. There’s no imminent coup that’s going to sweep Android out of Google’s hands. It’s perfectly natural for companies to do better in specific countries than they do in others. The important point right now is that Google offers a better experience than anyone else in an awful lot of markets. If Baidu can deliver what Chinese people want better than Google, then it deserves to dominate – same goes for Yandex in Russia. Google has no divine right to those users.

There are signs that Google is starting to exercise a little more caution with Android and ensure that more of the exciting and desirable new developments in the platform are part of Google’s Android rather than AOSP. If you’re in the US, the UK, or a number of other markets then the experience that Google delivers is simply unbeatable right now. Amazon’s Android fork feels limited and it’s hard to imagine new players breaking into the market and offering something more compelling than what Google currently offers. That’s not to say it’s impossible, but Google is hardly resting on its laurels.

The battle for mobile

Different companies have very different aims in mobile. The sale of Motorola Mobility could spell the end of Google’s experiment with hardware. Google’s profits are based on advertising and the unparalleled insights it can draw from the big data all those users generate. Without the pressure to make direct profit by selling services it has been able to totally disrupt a number of industries. Android is obviously the biggest success story beyond search, and it’s all about making sure that Google has a good slice of the mobile action, which is clearly where the market is moving.

The real barrier to someone else stealing away the Android platform is the difficulty of doing a better job than Google. Let’s not forget that Google’s Android still accounted for 52% of shipments in that Q4 of 2013, which is more than 150 million devices with Google services onboard. Panic may be premature.

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Facebook Disputes Claims That They Were Aware Of NSA Data Collection Outside Of FISA Orders

The Guardian newspaper made headlines yesterday for a story claiming the tech companies were not entirely truthful about their knowledge of National Security Agency spying. News outlets quickly picked up the accusations from NSA General Counsel Rajesh De that tech companies had “full knowledge” of the controversial surveillance of their users.

From the beginning of the NSA scandal last summer, tech companies have furiously denied that the NSA had direct access to their data. They have also denied knowing anything about the program that apparently allows the NSA to forcibly demand user data, known as PRISM. Moreover, they have publicly lobbied the U.S. Government to permit them to disclose the number of users that have been surveilled by the NSA, authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

Companies suing the government for the ability to be more transparent eventually won that case, and have since disclosed — within still harsh restrictive bounds — more information on government data requests.

Thus, Facebook quickly denied the new accusations. In a statement, the company told TechCrunch:

“Before it was reported in the news, we had never heard of ‘PRISM’ or any program in which Internet companies, voluntarily or otherwise, gave the government direct access to servers or in any way facilitated the bulk collection of user data. At the same time, we never suggested that we were not aware of our obligations under FISA, which was the topic of today’s hearing. In fact, we have been fighting for more transparency around the lawful national security-related requests from the U.S. Government that we may receive under this statute. The suggestion that we were misleading the public is frustrating and untrue.”

Soon after we received this statement, The Guardian issued a major “amendment” to their story.

“This article was amended on 20 March 2014 to remove statements in the original that the testimony by Rajesh De contradicted denials by technology companies about their knowledge of NSA data collection. It was also updated to clarify that the companies challenged the secrecy surrounding Section 702 orders. Other minor clarifications were also made.”

Section 702 refers to a law that permits some of the more controversial intelligence agency surveillance programs [PDF].

When asked whether The Guardian still stands by their original interpretation of the story, spokesman Gennady Kolker wrote back, “The article was amended to clarify and correct our reporting, in line with the Guardian’s policy and practices.”

In the original piece, The Guardian wrote the following:

The senior lawyer for the National Security Agency stated unequivocally on Wednesday that US technology companies were fully aware of the surveillance agency’s widespread collection of data, contradicting month of angry denials from the firms.

…

The NSA’s Wednesday comments contradicting the tech companies about the firms’ knowledge of Prism risk entrenching tensions with the firms NSA relies on for an effort that Robert Litt, general counsel for the director of national intelligence, told the board was “one of the most valuable collection tools that we have.

Now the passages read as follows:

The senior lawyer for the National Security Agency stated on Wednesday that US technology companies were fully aware of the surveillance agency’s widespread collection of data.

…

De and his administration colleagues were quick to answer the board that companies were aware of the government’s collection of data under 702, which Robert Litt, general counsel for the director of national intelligence, told the board was “one of the most valuable collection tools that we have.

Note that these sections have now been stripped of anything about De’s statements “contradicting” the companies’ insistence that they have not participated. The piece still asserts that the companies were aware of the governments collection under Section 702 — the FISA Amendments Act — with De replying yes to a question about whether the data collection occurred with the “full knowledge and assistance of any company from which information is obtained.”

The amendments to the article scaling back De’s statements reflect the difficulty in covering a story that has been shrouded in secrecy–a secrecy that has frustrated by citizens and tech companies alike. President Obama has proposed several changes to Intelligence Agency surveillance, but any major transparency reforms will have to wait until congress takes up the issue later this year.

Google did not respond to a request for comment, and Yahoo and Microsoft had no comment.

Microsoft Will Now Deploy Two Legal Teams, Outside Former Federal Judge To Approve User-Data Searches

Following a court document revealing that Microsoft read the email of a third-party blogger to uncover an internal leak, the company this evening announced a policy change, effective immediately, regarding how it searches user data that is part of its own network of services. Noting that it couldn’t, in its view, get a court order to search itself as none is needed, it will instead add layers of protection between it and its own users’ data.

First, the company will deploy a second legal team apart from the “internal investigating team” to vet the need for the data search. Following, a “former federal judge” will review the case, such as it is, and grant a decision. Microsoft will only execute a search into, say, an Outlook.com account if the retired judge consents that there is “evidence sufficient for a court order.”

And the number of this type of searches will be revealed in the company’s regular transparency reports. Microsoft exempts its own employees from the above. If you are an employee and have data on any Microsoft service, consider it public to your employer.

The change in tack is interesting given its speed – Microsoft came under fire in the last day or so. The online reaction to Microsoft’s admittedly legal search of the blogger’s personal emails and IMs has been swift and negative. We need better legal guidelines to protect user data from the service-providing company. That said, the boundaries that the company erected, provided they are extended and strengthened in the coming months, are at least a decent start. I say that at the risk of being too optimistic.

Here’s Microsoft’s statement:

We believe that Outlook and Hotmail email are and should be private.  Today there has been coverage about a particular case.  While we took extraordinary actions in this case based on the specific circumstances and our concerns about product integrity that would impact our customers, we want to provide additional context regarding how we approach these issues generally and how we are evolving our policies.

Courts do not issue orders authorizing someone to search themselves, since obviously no such order is needed.  So even when we believe we have probable cause, it’s not feasible to ask a court to order us to search ourselves. However, even we should not conduct a search of our own email and other customer services unless the circumstances would justify a court order, if one were available.  In order to build on our current practices and provide assurances for the future, we will follow the following policies going forward:

• To ensure we comply with the standards applicable to obtaining a court order, we will rely in the first instance on a legal team separate from the internal investigating team to assess the evidence. We will move forward only if that team concludes there is evidence of a crime that would be sufficient to justify a court order, if one were applicable. As an additional step, as we go forward, we will then submit this evidence to an outside attorney who is a former federal judge.  We will conduct such a search only if this former judge similarly concludes that there is evidence sufficient for a court order.
• Even when such a search takes place, it is important that it be confined to the matter under investigation and not search for other information.  We therefore will continue to ensure that the search itself is conducted in a proper manner, with supervision by counsel for this purpose.
• Finally, we believe it is appropriate to ensure transparency of these types of searches, just as it is for searches that are conducted in response to governmental or court orders.  We therefore will publish as part of our bi-annual transparency report the data on the number of these searches that have been conducted and the number of customer accounts that have been affected.

The only exception to these steps will be for internal investigations of Microsoft employees who we find in the course of a company investigation are using their personal accounts for Microsoft business.   And in these cases, the review will be confined to the subject matter of the investigation.

The privacy of our customers is incredibly important to us, and while we believe our actions in this particular case were appropriate given the specific circumstances, we want to be clear about how we will handle similar situations going forward. That is why we are building on our current practices and adding to them to further strengthen our processes and increase transparency.  

IMAGE BY FLICKR USER Robert Scoble UNDER CC BY 2.0 LICENSE (IMAGE HAS BEEN CROPPED)