Why I don't use Telegram
This Tool Shows Some Telegram Users’ Approximate Physical Location, CCTV
2. Shady owners
Pavel Durov is stated to be an owner of Telegram, a multi-million tech prodigy residing in Dubai. Who’s the owner of Telegram?
- 2006: Vkontakte is fouded by Pavel Durov in partnership with Lev Leviev, Yitzchak Mirilashvili.
- 2007-: Vkontakte is incorporated. Vyacheslav (Yitzchack) Mirilashvili held 60%, his grandfather Mikhail Mirilashvili (sentenced at that time) 10%, Lev Leviev 10% and Durov 20%.1
- 2007: Yuri Milner’s Digital Sky Technologies fund was the company’s first external investor. He bought a quarter of the network in 2007 and later merged DST’s shareholdings into the Mail.Ru Group. At the end of 2010, the holding increased its VK.com ownership stake by 7.5% - from 24.99% to 32.49%. Mail.ru Group secured the option to buy another 7.5% of VK.com in 2011.
- 2011-07: Mail.ru exercised the option and increased its shareholding to 39.99% which reduced the total share of the partners from 55.5% to 48.01% making Leviev’s share between 6% or 8%, according to various sources.
- 2011-07: Vkontakte revenue in 2010: $16.2 mil, 2009: ~$12 mil
- 2011-07-14: MAIL.RU GROUP LIMITED acquired a further stake of 7.44% in VKontakte for $111.7m. Mail.ru’s Equity stake in VKontakte has reached 39.99%. Mirilashvili family has left with 42%, and Leviev with 6% of stake.2
- 2012-05-29: Mail.ru Group yielded control of the company to Durov by offering him the voting rights on its shares. Combined with Durov’s personal 12% stake, this gave him 52% of the votes.
- 2013-08-14: First Telegram client presented.
- 2013-12: Pavel Durov have sold 12% of Vkontakte shares to Ivan Tavrin (shareholder of USM Holdings, CEO of MegaFon).
- 2013 Mikhail Mirilashvili have sold 40% of Vkontakte shares for $1.12 bil.
- 2014-02-21: TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP is incorporated in London with two members: DOGGED LABS LTD (British Virgin Islands) with Pavel Durov in the role of Managing Partner, and TELEGRAPH INC (Belize). Initial cash assets allocated in bank: ￡2,213,074.
- 2013-12-13: FSB demanded Vkontakte to disclose user data of Ukrainian Euromaidan organizers. Pavel Durov refused the demand and sold his share that same month.
- 2014-03-07: Autonomous system AS62041 is registered at British Virgin Islands by the name of Nikolai Durov, brother of Pavel Durov.
- 2014-04-21: Pavel Durov resigned from CEO of Vkontakte (VK).
- 2014-04-22: Pavel Durov leaves Russia.
- 2014: Pavel Durov becomes a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis by investing $250,000 in the local sugar industry.
- 2015: Pavel Durov sells his 12% stake in Vkontakte for $300 mil.
- 2015-10-30: TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP have resulted the period of 2014-02-21 to 2015-02-28 with ￡683,537 in total loss. Equity in 2015: ￡2,186,665,364.
- 2016-12-06: TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP have resulted the period of 2015-03-01 to 2016-02-29 with ￡1,378,612 in total loss. Equity in 2016: ￡449,464. Loaned from members: ￡2,511,513.
- 2017-02-21: Mr. Pavel Durov, citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis, resident of Finland, is registered as Person with Significant Control (PSC) over TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP.
- 2017-12-05: TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP have resulted the period of 2016-03-01 to 2017-02-28 with ￡1,437,530 in total loss. Equity in 2017: ￡538,827. Loaned from members: ￡1,976,257.
- 2017-06-28: TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP is listed as an OID in the relevant Registry of Organizers of Information Dissimination.
- 2017-07-21: TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP have received a disclosure order, dated by 12 July 2017, from Federal Security Service (“FSB”) to disclose technical information (IPs adresses, port numbers, encryption keys) on six mobile phone numbers whose owners were suspected of “terrorism-related activities”. The information was to be sent by 19 July 2017.
- 2017-09-14: An FSB officer reported that TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP has been offenced for not providing FSB the information, requested in July 2017, “necessary for decoding received, transmitted, delivered and (or) processed electronic messages”.
- 2017-10-16: TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP is convicted by Moscow Peace court; imposed with a fine of 800,000 Russian roubles (~11,740 euros at the time).
- 2017-10-24: TELEGRAM FZ-LLC (تيليجرام منطقة حرة -ذ.م.م) was registered in Dubai. Office address: Dubai Media City, Business Central Towers, Tower A, Office 1003/1004, P.O. Box 501919. Pavel Durov is mentioned as the owner, Arturo Pérez as CEO (source).
- 2018-02-21: Mr. Pavel Durov PSC residency is changed to United Arab Emirates.
- 2018-03-20: Roskomnadzor ordered TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP to provide technical data allowing access to the encrypted messages of users. The company replied that this was not feasible from the technological point of view.
- 2018-04-13: District Court of Moscow ordered the blocking of the Telegram application in Russia.
- 2018-05-10: TELEGRAM MESSENGER INC, registered in British Virgin Islands at Vistra Corporate Services Centre, appointed as Designated member to TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP.
- 2018-05-10: DOGGED LABS LTD has terminated the appointment if its membership in TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP.
- 2018-05-23: TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP have transferred all rights on Telegram application to TELEGRAM MESSENGER INC, which continued to manage and operate the project.
- 2018-10-09: TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP’s appeal to lower courts’ judgement is rejected by the City Court of Moscow.
- 2018-12-04: TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP is applied to be striked off. Signed by Pavel Durov as a representative for both TELEGRAM MESSENGER INC and TELEGRAPH INC.
- 2019-02-04: TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP is dissolved.
- 2019-april: TELEGRAM MESSENGER INC proclaimed to maintain the complains made by by TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP, dissoluted in the following.
- 2019-01-25: TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP’s appeal to lower courts’ judgement is rejected by the Supreme Court of Russia.
- 2012-10-12: Mail.Ru group changes its name to VK.
- 2021-02: Pavel Durov gets UAE citizenship.
- 2021-08-25: Pavel Durov gets French citizenship.
- 2022-10-20: DOGGED LABS LTD in British Virgin Islands is voluntary liquidated. Liquidation was signed by Irina Pravdina, residing at Marina Gate 2, Dubai, UAE (two blocks away from Dubai Media City park where Telegram office is situated) – possibly Durov’s Executive Assistant.
With three LLP Designated members:
- TELEGRAM MESSENGER INC., British Virgin Islands. Offshore office. Appointed on 10 May 2018.
- TELEGRAPH INC., Belize. Appointed on 21 February 2014.
- DOGGED LABS LTD., British Virgin Islands. Appointed on 21 February 2014, resigned on 10 May 2018. TELEGRAM MESSENGER LLP was dissolved on 2 April 2019
3. Superapps are evil
4. Fencing
1. Telegram is cooperating with the Russian government
TL;DR: Telegram officially shares all your data to Russian authorities.
Telegram is included into Russian Registry of Organizers of Information Dissimination since 2017-06-28. Russian state laws oblige services listed in the Registry to:
- Notify Roskomnadzor of their activities
- Store the information for 6 months
- Report and provide information to authorized government bodies
- Ensure that equipment and software meet requirements set by the government
Telegram must report to the State about all activities. It must store all user data, including conversations, metadata, session logs, etc., for at least 6 months on their servers. It must provide access to such data to government authorities – meaning FSB. Such data includes encryption keys.
Whereas London-based Telegram Messenger Limited Liability Partnership operates under UK laws, it is not clear if the company cooperates with Russian authorities.
Telegram has been included on the Registry in 2017. In April 2018 access to Telegram services in Russia were restricted. In June 2020 Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation removed the restrictions after Telegram’s founder3 “expressed his readiness to counter terrorism and extremism” (archived copy).
Other IM services registered as OID in Russia4:
- vk.com (previously owned by… Pavel Durov!)
- ICQ (Mail.ru Agent)
- Threema (suddenly)
Are not in the Registry:
- PrivacyGuides’s recommended: Signal, SimpleX, Briar
- PrivacyTool’s recommended: Status, Session
- Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp – owned by Meta, whic is proclaimed to be a terrorist and extremist organization in Russia since March, 2022
- Viber, Snapchat, QQ, Instagram, TikTok
<…(Russian oligarch Boris) Berezovsky accused Mirilashvili of being involved in an underhanded deal in the early 1990s to privatize St. Petersburg-based alcohol producer Samtrest. Berezovsky alleged that Mirilashvili was helped in the deal by President Vladimir Putin, who was then head of the City Administration’s External Affairs Committee, and called Mirilashvili a ‘criminal authority’ … Misha Kutaissky. Mirilashvili responded […] accused Berezovsky of lying: “It looks like President Vladimir Putin … does not need my protection,” he wrote. “When he was working in St. Petersburg’s City Hall, he was busy with completely different questions, and had no connection to the privatization process."> (source). ↩︎
Meaning that Pavel Durov has left with 12.01% stake, if sources are correct. ↩︎
It probably implies Pavel Durov mentioned as a founder. Though it’s not clear why his name is not written directly. ↩︎
Data provided for the beginning of 2024. ↩︎