[kpierre]

KGB is much better than NSA: they simply don't have money for data processing on that scale.

Yandex Mail is a great competitor to gmail, some things even work better -- you've got a separate list of thread's attachments, ability to unsubscribe from whole spam categories in one click, SMS (maybe only in russia) and so on

[ihsw]

That's a dangerous assumption to make, many world governments may have purchased intelligence from the NSA and now they'll have to re-allocate funds for locally-sourced intelligence.

[stcredzero]

Outsource your domestic spying to the NSA cloud!

EDIT: How do we do it? By saving money on counter-intelligence! it's a win-win!

[slig]

Only until patio11 convince them to increase the monthly price 10-fold.

[brown9-2]

A quick search found estimates for the FSB's budget in 2005 was over 60 billion rubles, which would have been about $2 billion USD back then.

http://www.agentura.ru/english/experts/safranchuk/

That seems like a very healthy budget to me.

[ivan_gammel]

FSB does not need the money for it, but they already spy on everyone for 15 years. In Putin's Russia, the ISPs purchase the necessary equipment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORM