The Mountain View giant leaves Crimea to his fate. The choice, imposed by US sanctions against Russia in return of the annexation of the peninsula, follows the same by other American companies as Apple and Paypal. But the ban can eventually be a cloud with a silver lining.
Starting from February 1, residents in Crimea will no more have access to Google Play, AdSense, AdWords and other developers and B2B services. Google have announced that will shut down the services at the end of January to comply with sanctions imposed by the United States in response to the Russian annexation of the peninsula. Since the choice of Google responds to the American ban of hi-tech exports and imports from the Crimea, it seems that internet users can continue to use other web-based services, like search, Maps and Gmail.
The Google ban is another step towards the isolation of the Crimea from the rest of the world, after the similar choice by Apple, Paypal, MacDonald’s, Visa and Mastercard.
Left alone
Might seem just amenities, and eventually only to get used to do without some burgers and stuff on the internet, but it does not. The shut down of Google Play, for example, will affect all owners of smartphones running Android. It means that people of Crimea will have to do without a lot of services that fill our lives every day, besides iTunes and world’s most popular payment methods. Something we take for granted, that make us feel more integrated and, perhaps, a bit more part of one world.
Of course, the ban has also more tangible effects on the business of the already economically depressed Crimea. Google has already announced that it will suspend payments to the online advertising services AdSense and AdWords accounts, as well as apps developers on the Play marketplace.
We are talking about numbers that, when viewed from Mountain View, are crumbs. About two million people live in Crimea, which is certainly not a cradle of hi-tech startups, but there is no doubt that the decision will have effects on Crimeans everyday life.
The parallel world
Not everythig is lost, however. The Runet, the Russian Internet as it is called, is a mine of resources. According to the news agency Sputnik, companies based in the Crimea are already migrating to similar Russian systems. From this point of view, the Russian universe is a parallel world.
The main Google competitor in Russia is Yandex. It’s fourth search engine in the world with 150 million requests per day, with an offer of services similar Google’s ones, like Yandex Maps for navigation or Yandex Money for online payments. Together with other large web companies, like Rambler and Mail.ru, Yandex leaves Google only the leftovers of the Internet Russian. The same thing happens on the social front, with Vkontakte and Odnoklassiki leaving Facebook only 18% of the market.
The American exodus from the Crimea could even make convenient to the Kremlin. On September Putin has in fact expressed his intention to unplug the Russian web from the rest of the world, “in special cases of emergency.” A self-sufficient web, under the complete control of Moscow authorities – and that doesn’t need to deal with foreign companies – is just what Putin needs.
@daniloeliatweet
The Mountain View giant leaves Crimea to his fate. The choice, imposed by US sanctions against Russia in return of the annexation of the peninsula, follows the same by other American companies as Apple and Paypal. But the ban can eventually be a cloud with a silver lining.
Starting from February 1, residents in Crimea will no more have access to Google Play, AdSense, AdWords and other developers and B2B services. Google have announced that will shut down the services at the end of January to comply with sanctions imposed by the United States in response to the Russian annexation of the peninsula. Since the choice of Google responds to the American ban of hi-tech exports and imports from the Crimea, it seems that internet users can continue to use other web-based services, like search, Maps and Gmail.
