While Russia has the most internet users out of any European country, the adult population is still just getting online for the first time. A 2011 poll found that only half of all adults in Russia use the internet monthly, an increase of 15% from the year before.
These new internet users (and some experienced ones) haven’t built up a healthy dose of cynicism when browsing the web. “Free Viagra? This looks legit,” they think. But now, Russian internet powerhouse Mail.Ru group has launched a new version of its browser that integrates Helsinki-based Web Of Trust‘s crowdsourced website reputation rankings.
Antivirus software is able to block a portion of the internet’s dark side, while Web Of Trust’s safe-surfing technology provides a traffic light style icons next to links to give users an indication of which websites can be trusted.
On Mail.Ru’s aptly named browser, “Internet”, Web Of Trust rankings can be displayed next to URL links with the add-on enabled. The browser is offered to 60 million users of Mail.Ru’s services.
“Mail.Ru has been using WOT technology as part of our email services for more than a year, and because our users enjoy the security and peace of mind, we have expanded our partnership with WOT and have integrated their reputation system in our newest browser,” said Andrew Kononykhin Head of digital distribution department at Mail.Ru.
The WOT add-on has 40 million downloads, and each month its users rate more than 350,000 new sites on metrics like trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy, and child safety. Two million websites in Russia have been rated, so far.
It looks like the WOT team will keep looking east as they expand their integrations and rankings.
“Mail.Ru has been a fantastic partner and we were eager to expand our relationship with the launch of their exciting new browser,” said Markus Suomi, CEO of Web of Trust. “Mail.Ru’s social network is the most popular in Russia and eMarketer projects faster social networking growth in Eastern Europe than in North America. So we expect our relationship with Mail.Ru to be increasingly strategic.”
