• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 28, 2015

A former employee of the Russian search engine Yandex was convicted of stealing and selling the company’s source code and algorithms.

Dmitry Korobov, the former employee, reportedly stole the search engine’s intellectual property worth several billion rubles and planned to sell the code and algorithms for $25,000 and 250,000 rubles, but Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested him before the transaction took place, according to one report.

One company that Korobov allegedly approached -- Enterprise Nix -- operates under the name Nix Computer supermarket. He also took to the black market and technology like Tor to reach hacker forums. Another source told the Russian publication Kommersant that Korobov planned to use the money to launch a startup.

Yandex estimated the value of the code and algorithms at "billions of rubles," Kommersant's sources estimate. A Yandex representative told the court the company views the software code and algorithms stolen as “a key part of our company" and that "it was related directly to Yandex's search engine, which is the main source of the company's income."

Yandex has about 57% of Russian search query market share, followed by Google with about 35%, according to data service LiveInternet.