Since the end of February 2022, many foreign services have suspended their activities in the Russian Federation or have left the Russian market. Against this background, the Russians have greatly increased the demand for services for issuing virtual numbers, which allow the registration of SMS.
The service trend was confirmed by Yandex, Grizzly SMS and Novofon.com. The cost of “renting” such rooms varies from 7 to 90 rubles, Vedomosti reported.
According to Grizzly SMS, the most popular account activations in January were on Telegram, WhatsApp, Tinder, and OpenAI, which was developed by ChatGPT.
Novofon.com is sure that the demand is related precisely to the departure of foreign services and the need for services, from online cinemas to cryptocurrency exchanges, and to connect foreign virtual numbers for identification.
An interlocutor of the publication in one of the four big operators said that there was no direct violation in the use of such numbers. This is the sale of services of foreign operators, which is not regulated by Russian laws.
However, such services are “in a gray area with the prospect of darkening until the beginning of the blocking of sites with sales.”
Author:
karina pardaeva
Source: RB
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