Russia’s Mail.ru to end its search partnership with Google come 2013

It seems that Russian internet group Mail.ru plans to go it alone in the new year. Its front page search is currently partially powered by Google, but sources have confirmed to Russian site Izvestia that the service will not be renewing its contract with the search giant in February 2013.

Mail.ru, which has been planning a global launch as My.com, is currently powering the search box on its home page partially with its own algorithm, and partly with the help of Google (for larger international searches).

However, it seems that Mail.ru is ready to strike out on its own — at the moment, it only handles about 40% of searches on the site, but has been working on its algorithm throughout the partnership with Google. After its previous deal with Russian search giant Yandex ended, Mail.ru signed the agreement with Google which has been in effect since 1 January 2010.

While a spokesperson from Mail.ru declined to comment, The Next Web notes that another reason that Mail.ru may have decided to end its partnership with Google is if it has found an alternative provider. According to the local report, Google currently profits from all the advertising placed in the search results, not Mail.ru.

Representatives from the company have said recently that they believe their search engine is just as good as Google and Yandex’s offerings. The group, which has a stake in high profile tech companies like Facebook, Zynga and Groupon, seems to be focusing on rolling out a number of new services — in addition to My.com (which is still not fully operational), it recently launched a socially integrated web browser it called Amigo.