Type of site web portal | Commercial Yes | |
Available in English, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Polish, Russian Website * The Delfi web portal for Estonia (in Russian)
* The Delfi web portal for Latvia (in Russian)
* The Delfi web portal for Lithuania (in Russian)
* The Delfi web portal in Polish
* The Delfi web portal in English Alexa rank 2,508[1] (delfi.lt; August 2016)
4,587[2] (delfi.lv; August 2016)
5,558[3] (delfi.ee; August 2016) Registration Optional
(paid subscription required for access to most articles in English version) | ||
Delfi (occasionally capitalized as DELFI) is a major internet portal in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania providing daily news, ranging from gardening to politics. It ranks as the most popular website among Lithuanian and Estonian internet users.
Contents
Delfi operates in the respective Baltic countries under the domain names delfi.ee, delfi.lv, and delfi.lt. Aside from versions in the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian languages, the company offers Russian language versions of its portal in all three countries. On 12 March 2012, Delfi started a Polish version under pl.delfi.lt. A year later an English version was added under en.delfi.lt.
In March 2014 delfi.ua version was closed.
In February 2016, most of the English language version's contents were placed under a paywall to restrict access to most articles without a paid subscription, as the articles in this version of Delfi are supported by the Lithuania Tribune, which raised questions on implementing the paywall there. It is unknown when the other language editions will be implementing the paywall.
Company development
Delfi was established in 1999 by the Estonian company MicroLink and sold in 2003 to the Norwegian company Findexa. In 2007 Estonian media group Ekspress Grupp acquired 100% of Delfi stocks for €54m. It operates under a single name in the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, and also in Ukraine. It has its own bureau in Moscow, Kaliningrad, Warsaw, and Stockholm. It also sources its news reports from the Baltic News Service and from wire services.
Freedom of speech
Because visitors of Delfi can anonymously comment on every news story, this site generates debates over freedom of speech in the Baltic States. Some members of the Estonian and Lithuanian Parliaments have proposed laws making Delfi and other news portals responsible for the contents of anonymous comments. In September 2006, attorneys of Artūras Zuokas, the mayor for Vilnius, asked public prosecutors to seize Delfi servers and reveal the IP addresses of all anonymous commentators that have written comments about him in several Delfi publications. In March 2015 Estonian Delfi started a defamation campaign against Conservative People's Party of Estonia and closed comment sections because of ideological disagreement and, arguably, because of harsh criticism they received.
In June 2015, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Delfi AS v. Estonia that holding delfi.ee responsible for its readers' comments did not violate the European Convention on Human Rights' protection of freedom of speech.