Wirtualna Polska


Wirtualna Polska is a Polish company involved in many mass media and e-commerce enterprises.
WWW wp.pl𝕏 wirtualnapolskaFB WirtualnaPolskaYT UCZ9dViYsOulUhR04hVkpsMw

History

The two founders of the portal, and Leszek Bogdanowicz, created it whilst in Germany in 1995. Initially named Wirtualna Akademia, it was a web directory. It was later renamed to Wirtualna Polska and soon gained a stable headquarters in Gdańsk. Borzestowski sold his shares to other investors in 2005, and the company has grown significantly since then; its e-mail service, Poczta WP, was established in November 1998 and has since become extremely popular.

Ownership and structure

In 2014, Orange Polska sold all shares of Wirtualna Polska to Grupa o2, another mass media company, for 375 million zł. The purchase was funded by the private equity firm Innova Capital. From March 2018 to August 2024, Wirtualna Polska's owner was Joanna Pawlak. She was succeeded by Jacek Świderski, the owner of Wirtualna Polska's holding company.
On 16 November 2020, Marcin Meller became the editor-in-chief of Wirtualna Polska, a position left vacant by the departing after a scandal in February 2020. On 4 December, Meller also left the role and was replaced by. On 1 March 2023, he was in turn replaced by.

Controversies

In January 2020, the investigative journalism portal OKO.press published an article detailing the alleged collaboration of Wirtualna Polska with the Ministry of Justice, primarily by censoring material criticizing Zbigniew Ziobro and writing articles expressing support for the ministry under false surnames. The aforementioned editor-in-chief, Tomasz Machała, was forced to resign following an internal investigation. Machała then made several negative comments about Wirtualna Polska and stated that only 1% of its revenue came from advertising.