MOSCOW, August 28 - RAPSI. Effective fully-automated systems which publish information in the blogosphere so as to shape public opinion are not feasible, expert Denis Terekhov, a managing partner of Russia's leading social media and marketing company Social Networks, told RIA Novosti.

Kommersant daily previously reported that a customer by the name of Military Unit No. 54939 placed an order for systems codenamed Dispute, Monitor-3, and Storm-12.

A government source told the newspaper that the military unit is part of the Foreign Intelligence Service.

According to Kommersant, the Foreign Intelligence Service has announced three closed tenders amounting to a total value of over 30 million rubles ($943,300) for the development of new methods of monitoring the blogosphere, as well as for publishing messages on social networks aimed at influencing public opinion. Dispute and Monitor-3 are expected to be ready for use this year and Storm-12 in 2013.

The newspaper reported that the company Iteranet won all three tenders and is in the process of developing the systems. Iteranet is a system and service integrator in communications and computer technologies. It was established in 1999 on the basis of Iteranet's IT departments. Iteranet's clients include state authorities, Rostelecom, Russian Railways, McDonald's, and a number of other companies.

However, Iteranet CEO Igor Matskevich has refuted the claims, saying that his company had not signed any contracts of the sort.

Even the simpler task of gleaning information from social networks and analyzing it requires considerable effort and often human input, the expert told RIA Novosti. At our current stage of technological development, it is not feasible to use an automated system for shaping public opinion in social networks.

"I am unable to see how messages from terrorists and spies can be monitored. They are not likely to use plain language. A monitoring project for the intelligence service would cost several million rubles a month. Frankly, I do not know a single company which would be able to implement it in a truly effective manner," Terekhov said.

"Whether your monitor can then embed the information in the automatic mode is more complicated. Existing technologies do not allow artificial intelligence to communicate on the same level with a person", he added.

Blogosphere monitoring has been carried out by many general-purpose search engines, such as Yandex, which has declined to comment on the issue.