Comptek. In 2000, Yandex was incorporated as a standalone company by Arkady Volozh. In 1998, Yandex launched contextual advertisement on its search engine. In September 2005, it opened an office in Ukraine and launched www.yandex.ua. In 2007, Yandex introduced a customized search engine for Ukrainian users; Yandex also opened its development center in Kyiv in May 2007. In 2008, Yandex extended its presence in Ukraine by increasing bandwidth between Moscow data centers and UA-IX in Ukraine fivefold. In 2009, all services of www.yandex.ua were localized for the Ukrainian market. In 2010, Yandex launched its "Poltava" search engine algorithm for Ukrainian users, based on its MatrixNet technology. On June 20, 2008, it announced the formation of Yandex Labs in Silicon Valley, with an objective to foster "innovation in search and advertising technology". In 2022, TechCrunch reported that Yandex was selling its media division after the EU sanctioned the former head of its news operation, Lev Gershenzon (VK confirmed to be the buyer in an Apr 2022 press release). The CNN also reported in March 2022 that Yandex warned it may not be able to pay its debts due to sanctions imposed on Russia. On 12 September 2022 Yandex transferred its domain from yandex.ru to ya.ru. In late November 2022, the holding company announced a review of its ownership with the goal of divestment. Products and services In 2001, the company launched the Yandex.Direct online advertising network. In January 2009, Mozilla Firefox 3.5, replaced Google with Yandex as the default search provider for Russian-language builds. In August 2009, the company had introduced a player of free legal music in its search results. In September 2010, Yandex launched Yandex Music, a music streaming service, with a catalogue of 800,000 tracks from 58,000 performers. On May 19, 2010, it launched an English-only web search engine. In March 2013, the company added an English user interface to its translation mobile app. In July 2013, Mail.Ru started placing Yandex Direct ads on its search result pages. On October 10, 2017, the company introduced its intelligent personal assistant, Alisa (Alice) for Android, iOS, and Microsoft Windows. On February 16, 2018, the company showed off the first tests of its autonomous cars in Moscow. Acquisitions In March 2007, it acquired Russian social networking service moikrug.ru.; on June 16, 2008, Yandex acquired SMILink, a Russian road traffic monitoring agency, to merge with Yandex. Maps services. In September 2008, the