Rambler has to fire 50 percent of its staff

Rambler Media, mother company of popular Russian portal Rambler.ru, faces tough times. Their share of web searches has dropped from 15 percent in January to 8 percent now. To make things even worse, Rambler thought to receive $70.1 million in cash from Google for Begun – Rambler’s contextual advertising company – yet the Russian Federal Anti-Monopoly Service refused Google’s application. Rumor has it that a man called Putin inspired the service.

As a result, Rambler Media has to lay-off fifty percent of its staff, Quintura reports. Sources say that divisions responsible for Rambler’s company non-core products will be hit hardest. Examples are telecom provider Rambler Telecom, photo sharing community Rambler-Foto, video sharing community Rambler Vision, and IT news site Ferra.