VK (short for its unique name VKontakte; Russian: Вконта́кте, which means InContact) is a Russian online internet based life and long range interpersonal communication benefit situated in Saint Petersburg.
VK is accessible in a few dialects yet it is particularly utilized by Russian-speakers. VK enables clients to message each other freely or secretly, to make gatherings, open pages and occasions, offer and label pictures, sound and video, and to play program based diversions.
500 million records
As of August 2018, VK had something like 500 million records. VK is positioned twentieth (as of January 2019) in Alexa’s worldwide Top 500 destinations. It is the most well known site in Russia. As indicated by SimilarWeb, VK is the ninth most visited site on the planet. As of March 2018, VK likewise positioned as the most well known long range informal communication site in Belarus and Kazakhstan notwithstanding Russia.
Proprietorship
At first, organizer and CEO Pavel Durov claimed 20% of offers (despite the fact that he had dominant part casting a ballot control through intermediary cast a ballot), and a trio of Russian-Israeli financial specialists, Vyacheslav Mirilashvili (Mikhael Mirilashvili’s child) and Lev Leviev,owned 60%, 10%, and 10% respectively. The unique originators at that point sold a stake of 39.99% to Mail.ru Group (formerly Digital Sky Technologies).
On 29 May 2012, Mail.ru Group declared that it has chosen to yield control of the organization to Durov by offering him the casting a ballot rights on its offers. Joined with Durov’s own 12% stake, this gave him 52% of the votes.
40% offer in VK
In April 2013, the Mirilashvili family sold its 40% offer in VK to United Capital Partners for $1.12 billion, while Lev Leviev sold his 8% share in a similar arrangement, giving United Capital Partners 48% proprietorship. In January 2014, VK’s organizer Pavel Durov sold his 12% stake in the organization to Ivan Tavrin, the CEO of MegaFon, which is controlled by Alisher Usmanov.
Following the arrangement, Usmanov and his partners controlled around 52% of the company. Shortly from that point, the CEO of Megafon, sold his 12% stake to Mail.ru, in this manner permitting mail.ru to unite its controlling stake of 52% in VK.
Abdication to the board
On 1 April 2014, Durov presented his abdication to the board; at first, because of the reality the organization affirmed he had surrendered, it was accepted to be identified with the Ukrainian crisis which started in February of the equivalent year. However, Durov himself guaranteed it was an April Fool’s Joke on 3 April 2014. On 21 April 2014, Durov was rejected as CEO, asserting he neglected to pull back his letter of acquiescence a month sooner.
Durov then asserted the organization had been adequately assumed control by Vladimir Putin’s political faction, suggesting his rejection was the aftereffect of the two his refusal to hand over close to home subtleties of clients to government law implementation and his refusal to hand over the individual subtleties of individuals who were individuals from a VKontakte aggregate committed to the Euromaidan protest movement.Durov then left Russia and expressed that he had “no plans to go back” and that “the nation is contrary with Internet business right now”.
Purchased the staying 48% stake of VK
On 16 September 2014, the Mail.ru group purchased the staying 48% stake of VK from United Capital Partners(UCP) for $1.5 billion, thus turning into the sole proprietor of the interpersonal organization.
In May 2017, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a declaration to force a prohibition on Mail.ru and its broadly utilized interpersonal organizations including VKontakte and Odnoklassniki as part of its proceeded with authorizations on Russia for its annexation of Crimea and association in the War in Donbass. Reporters Without Borders condemned the boycott, considering it an “unbalanced measure that truly undermines the Ukrainian individuals’ entitlement to data and opportunity of expression.” VK shut its office in Ukraine’s capital Kiev mid-June 2017.