Press-release: PRAVDA.Ru leaves “spy” net

Yesterday, PRAVDA.Ru and its related projects decided to leave the statistic system &to=http://spylog.ru' target=_blank>SpyLog, which is trying to enter the Western market under the name Mytrix.

This decision was taken after questionable activities of this service’s administration toward PRAVDA.Ru. Moreover, while considering the quality of the service more attentively, as well as the influence that SpyLog had upon our readers, we understood that cooperation with this statistic system only harmed the further development of PRAVDA.Ru and its related projects. However, let us tell the whole story. This summer, just after Planeta Internet published a magazine article &to=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/07/25/10948.html' target=_blank>“No Ratings” by PRAVDA.Ru editor-in-chief Vadim Gorshenin explaining our decision to withdraw from all RuNet’s ratings, SpyLog suddenly closed any access for PRAVDA.Ru to our statistics. A certain Alexei Polonyanko, who introduced himself as technical service’s leader, announced the following: “You falsified the counter’s figures of the SpyLog system.” Such a serious accusation was caused by the figure of the number of visitors over two days, according to which our resource had more than 70,000 visitors. We cleared up the situation. It turned out that, while taking the decision to expell us from the service, Mr Polonyanko had not even taken the time to look at the statistics showing that several large Western resources had simultaneously put links to PRAVDA.Ru. Then, they made excuses.

Two weeks ago, PRAVDA.Ru told to its readers about the US phobia of SpyLog, which became apparent when it closed access to the statistics of the first Russian-American project, FARK. Later, while speaking with PRAVDA.Ru correspondent, SpyLog (Mytrix) marketing director Alexei Basov and cheif moderator Vladimir Kalachikhin explained that FARK had a big American audience. So big, that even Yandex cannot imagine it! Their next claim was that the project works not in one domain zone, but in two. And not only in Russian but in English as well.

The above-mentioned publication caused a toughening of the statistic system for PRAVDA.Ru: we were categorically told that the Russian and English versions of our edition were two different sites, so they could not be counted together. The arguments were similar to those connected with FARK. Therefore, we ourselves divided the accounts, and found that their demands did not correspond with the rules of SpyLog itself. According to its rules, sites that do not have a Russian version can not be admitted into the system. Moreover, it became clear that such demands were not made to the other sites that are presented in the catalogue.

Until recently, we could not understand what brought about such tough “love” for us. This came about after we carried out negotiations to include all the resources controlled by PRAVDA.Ru stock company in holdings’ rating.

The first question the marketing director of SpyLog asked us was “Do you want to overcome Yandex (Yandex as the biggest search system of Russian Internet)?” As he heard that this was not planned by us, Alexei Basov decided to specify: “And you do not aspire to belong to three first editions?” Their apprehensions could be understood, as the number of PRAVDA.Ru visitors increases in spurts, so in several weeks, what Mr Basov was is so afraid of really could happen. Another question is why he is so afraid of it? The answer could be somewhere in the field of objective statistical research. Therefore, PRAVDA.Ru resources did not get the rating that could tell much to everybody who is interested in RuNet’s development. However, they changed their rules according to our insistence. Now these rules say that “a site’s version in a language different from Russian is to be regarded as an independent resource and must be registered separately.” This change came into effect more than a week ago, though SpyLog did not inform anybody about it. Other sites’ pages and versions in foreign languages to which Yandex belongs as well are still counted together with their Russian-language versions. Well, this “objective” position of Mytrix show how unprejudiced its statistics are.