Rambler has to fire 50 percent of its staff

Written on 7th November 2008                                                                                                              COMMENT
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

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.