Mail.ru Launches in the U.S. as My.com

There you have it, instead of starting a war with its neighbor, as some of the folks in the U.S. were hoping; Russia minds its own business. The Russians start slow, yet meaningful advances on the global market and besides huge deals with China, they aim at the share of cyberspace they believe is theirs by right of free trade, and we can't blame them.

Last week, we reported Russian government may oblige foreign service providers like Facebook, Google and Yahoo store user data on servers that would be physically located within the Russian territory. A strategic move won't be the first or unique. China blocked Google Docs, Google Drive, Google+, Google.com, Picasa, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo!, Twitter, Wordpress, Dropbox, Vimeo, Technorati and WikiLeaks among a few dozen more websites years ago, and it's not only a matter of censorship, if not protection of national interests. The breakdown of global Internet market looks stark - the staggering majority of online users use American search engine and email service providers to store gazillions of private data on American servers, on American soil. It did not seem like a big deal until it became evident the U.S. soil may not be as friendly to private data as we once thought.

At the same time, one of Russia's largest domestic email companies now expands its reach internationally, and anyone willing to store his/her data outside the U.S. may seriously consider My.com as an alternative mail client, to which the NSA will have great trouble accessing.

Now, Mail.ru is a household name in Russia with little to no competition on the local market, and it encompasses not only the email service, but also a large array of content, an auction site and a Google-like advertising ecosystem. As far as email service is concerned, mail.ru accounts for nearly a half of the country's Internet users' email accounts. The company feels strong enough to advance Westwards, and back in the fall of 2013 they launched several mobile apps - MyChat [Android, iOS] message service, MyMail email management app for Android and iOS, MyGames and now @my.com email client for mobile devices, which is available from within the MyMail mobile app.

According to the company, the user base is growing at 10,000 users per days rate, and anyone concerned about privacy should know that the company’s servers are located in Netherlands, and not in Russia.

Mail.ru's CEO Dmitry Grishin does not seem to view the expansion as anything that has to do with the Russian national interests or politics, though, and cuts all the possible government spying allegations short with pragmatism peculiar to all businessmen, including those in the Silicon Valley, saying, “From my perspective, I believe technology has no politics and no borders. People just don’t think about it how you think about ‘Russia, Europe.’ They think, ‘What is the best email client?’”

We will review the app and the email client shortly, and let you know its virtues and flaws, so stay tuned to Download3k!