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Can Google and Yandex manipulate search results “manually”?

Russian Federal Antitrust Service believes they can. Elena Zaeva, the main person in service’s department of communication and informational technologies, stated that the service has revealed the opportunity of search engines, namely Yandex and Google, to affect search results “manually”. But the service did not reveal violation of current Russian law, but it monitors the situation.

In October Zaeva has stated that the service in November will complete analysing of Google and Yandex on subject of preferential placement of search engines’ resources in first positions of search results. In December Federal antitrust service has completed analysing and revealed that “Google and Yandex can manipulate with search results according to criteria set up by the search engine at any moment virtually “by hand””.

It means that “each case when the ranging of search results is not justified by objective criteria is to be duly investigated, the service will continue to monitor”, the service assured. The service also explores the methods of European Commission on the subject of handling disputes with search engines. Yandex has underlined that the search results are provided to users only with help of algorithms, the manually manipulation with search is excluded in Yandex.