Delfi (occasionally capitalized as DELFI) is a news website in

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

, and

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

providing daily news, ranging from gardening to politics. It ranks as one of the most popular websites among Baltic users. Delfi operates in the respective Baltic countries under the

domain names In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services, and more. D ...

delfi.ee, delfi.lv, and delfi.lt. Aside from versions in the

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

, Latvian, and

Lithuanian Lithuanian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Lithuania, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe ** Lithuanian language ** Lithuanians, a Baltic ethnic group, native to Lithuania and the immediate geographical region ** L ...

languages, the company offers

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

-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, the delfi.ua website was closed. In February 2016, most of the delfi.lt English-language content was placed behind a

paywall A paywall is a method of restricting access to content (media), content, with a purchase or a subscription business model, paid subscription, especially news. Beginning in the mid-2010s, newspapers started implementing paywalls on their website ...

to restrict access to most articles without a paid subscription, as the articles in this version of Delfi are supported by the ''

Lithuania Tribune Lithuania Tribune is an online news portal providing news about Lithuania in English (as well as some articles in Russian and for a few years in Mandarin). It caters to foreigners with business and diplomatic interests in Lithuania, as well as the ...

'', which raised questions on implementing the paywall there. Other language editions followed later on.

Company development

Delfi was established in 1999 by the Estonian company MicroLink and sold in 2003, to the Norwegian company

Findexa Eniro AB is a Nordic tech company that helps small and medium-sized companies with digital marketing. Eniro also has a search service that aggregates, filters and presents information to help individuals find and come into contact with each oth ...

. In 2007, Estonian media group

Ekspress Grupp Ekspress Grupp is an Estonian media and publishing company. The company's two main segments are: media segment and printing service segment. The media segment encompasses, for example, online portal Delfi, several other news portals, publishing ...

acquired 100% of Delfi stocks for €54m. It operates under a single name in the three

Baltic state The United Baltic Duchy (; ; ), or alternatively the Grand Duchy of Livonia, was the name of a short-lived state during World War I that was proclaimed by leaders of the local Baltic German Baltic German nobility, nobility. The attempt to establ ...

s of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, and also in

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. It has its own bureau in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Kaliningrad Kaliningrad,. known as Königsberg; ; . until 1946, is the largest city and administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, an Enclave and exclave, exclave of Russia between Lithuania and Poland ( west of the bulk of Russia), located on the Prego ...

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, and

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

. It also sources its news reports from the

Baltic News Service The Baltic News Service (BNS) is the largest news agency operating in the Baltic States. Founded in April 1990, by a group of students (the founding CEO was Allan Martinson), it sought to inform foreign correspondents in Moscow of developmen ...

and from wire services.

Freedom of speech

Because visitors of Delfi can anonymously comment on all news articles, the site generates debates over

freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been r ...

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 for

Artūras Zuokas Artūras Zuokas (born 21 February 1968) is a Lithuanian journalist, businessman and politician who served as the mayor of the capital of Lithuania, Vilnius, from 2000 to 2007 and again from 2011 to 2015, and as member of Lithuania's unicameral pa ...

, mayor of

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

, asked public prosecutors to seize Delfi servers and reveal the

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...

es of all anonymous commentators who have written comments about him in several Delfi publications. In June 2015, the

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The court hears applications alleging that a co ...

ruled in '' Delfi AS v. Estonia'' that holding delfi.ee responsible for its readers' comments did not violate the

European Convention on Human Rights The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is a Supranational law, supranational convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Draf ...

' protection of freedom of speech.

Patron of the University of Latvia

Since 2018, Delfi has been a bronze patron of the

University of Latvia University of Latvia (, shortened ''LU'') is a public research university located in Riga, Latvia. The university was established in 1919. History The University of Latvia, initially named as the Higher School of Latvia () was founded on Se ...

Foundation. Support is granted to the university's students of Communication Science of the Faculty of Social Sciences, as well as other students of Communication and Journalism in all Latvian higher education institutions. In 2018, the first scholarships in the amount of 10,000 EUR were awarded. Delfi is an internet partner and supporter of the social scholarship Ceļamaize 2009.

References

Sources

Internet portals in the Baltic States: legal issues
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929165335/http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/getdocument.aspx?logid=5&id=cac1473f-cf85-4740-a9cb-f3f8d202733c , date=29 September 2011 by Liutauras Ulevičius

External links

The Delfi web portal for Estonia

The Delfi web portal for Latvia

The Delfi web portal for Lithuania
Mass media companies of Lithuania Latvian news websites Lithuanian news websites 1999 establishments in Lithuania Estonian news websites Russian-language websites