Russian court fines WhatsApp, Snapchat, Tinder, Spotify, and Hotels.com for refusal to localise data of Russian users

A Moscow Magistrate’s Court has fined messenger WhatsApp, social media Snapchat, online dating app Tinder, streaming service Spotify, and the online booking website Hotels.com for refusing to localise the data of its Russian users, report Russian news agency Interfax and state news agency RIA Novosti.

The company Match Group LLC, which owns Tinder, was fined two million rubles (€32,632); the company Snap Inc., which owns Snapchat, got a fine of one million rubles (€16,316). According to the court’s ruling, the companies are guilty of “failure by the operator to fulfil the requirement established by the Russian Federation Law on Personal Data during the collecting of personal data process on providing recordings, systematisation, collection, storage, clarification (updates, changes), or extraction of personal data of the Russian Federation nationals with the usage of databases located on the territory of the Russian Federation”.

The company WhatsApp LLC, which owns WhatsApp, was fined 18 million rubles (€294,693). This is the second fine for refusing to localise users’ data for the company, thus, according to the ruling, “repeated commission of the administrative offence”. The first fine for this offence was received by the company back in August 2021. Then, a Moscow district court ruled that WhatsApp would have to pay four million rubles (€65,265).

Spotify was found guilty of the same offence, but received a fine of only 500,000 rubles (€8,158). According to the Administrative Code, the minimal fine for this offence for legal entities is one million rubles (€16,316).

The company Hotels.com, L.P., which owns Hotels.com, was fined one million rubles (€16,316) for its refusal to localise personal data of Russian users. “We do not consider this an offence, but if the court does decide that this constitutes as one, then the fine cannot be applicable to us. There are two alternatives here — to either substitute a fine with a warning, or stop the court proceedings due to the lack of wrongdoing,” said the company’s lawyer. The website stopped processing data of Russian users on 1 April due to the company ceasing to conduct business in Russia.

On 26 July, the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russian fined Google more than two billion rubles (€32 mnl) for “abusing its dominant market position of the YouTube video hosting services”. Earlier, the Moscow Magistrate’s Court fined Google 21 billion rubles (€343 mln) for repeated refusal to delete prohibited materials.