Russian tech giant Yandex removes national borders from its maps
Yandex maps help people find organisations and places nearby, it helps to choose public transport and also plan comfortable routes. In the nearest future, the map will be used for its main purpose to overview scales of the map and it will be more physical – geographical on scales. The main goal is to showcase to the world around, Yandex maps app handles other potential political disputes such as different names of places or different English transliterations of Ukrainian place names, either by customising the view, based on the location of the users; or displaying contradicting options on the map, also in a bid to allow political controversy and to claim neutrality.
Yandex map is a Russian web mapping service developed by Yandex. The service provides detailed maps of the whole world, it provides directions and estimated times of arrival for driving, walking, cycling, kick scooter, and public transportation navigation.
Yandex maps provide information about the organisation and help you reach your destination by car, public transport, bike, or on foot based on current traffic conditions.
The latest development concerning Yandex is that it has removed national borders from its maps product. Russia’s digital landscape in the wake of Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine continues to play out at a maximum to a minimum level. Yandex’s maps app, which is known in most countries in the CIS region, can still see Country names displayed, but lines depicting exact borders between countries like Russia and Ukraine are no longer visible. This is a result of the ongoing chaos in Ukraine- where Putin’s regime is attempting to redraw physical borders through bloody, military aggression.
The reason for the action has not been explained, the removal of national borders from its maps product when asked for reasons in a comment session the company confirmed it has removed national frontiers spinning the change as part of a shift towards local navigation.
The Russian tech giant announced a more major reconfiguration of its business focused on shrinking its political risks. Yandex’s tactics are to shrink its risk from inside and outside Russia remain to be seen, given most of its operations and staff are stuck operating under diktats set by the Kremlin.
This month the European Union added a second of Yandex’s key execs – co-founder CEO and exec director, Arkady Volozh to its list, triggering another fall in its share price. The company itself has not been sanctioned. Volozh responded by stepping down bit Yandex called the EU’s decision ” Wholly Unjust” and based on an inaccurate understanding of Arkady and what Yandex is all about ” Rather than being queried, Arkady should be lauded for building, from the ground up, one of the most independent, modern and progressive companies in Russia and the most innovative companies in Europe; a true pioneer in search, ride-hailing, maps and navigation, autonomous vehicles to name but a few of the areas where Yandex excels,” the company added in a statement regarding the recent designation of Arkady Volozh.
It was sanctioned by the EU. Nevertheless, support will be provided when necessary to the company and Arkady seeks to appeal and overturn his unfounded designation. As of March the EU also sanctioned deputy CEO and execs director, Tigran Khudaverdyan-who stepped down at that point too. Yandex’s share price has more than 70% since mid-February.
