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Russia Fines Facebook $50 For Failing To Comply With Local Data Privacy Law (zdnet.com) 46

Russia is fining Facebook a whopping 3,000 rubles (approximately $47) for failing to comply with the country's data privacy law and store data of Russian Facebook users on servers located inside Russia. The fine serves as a stern warning for any social media company who thinks about violating its data privacy laws: Russia is not messing around. ZDNet reports: The legal proceedings started after a complaint from Roskomnadzor (Russia's Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media), the country's telecommunications watchdog. Roskomnadzor lodged a complaint after Facebook failed to comply with Russia's data localization legislation -- Federal Law No. 242-FZ. Adopted on December 31, 2014, the law entered into effect on September 1, 2015. According to this legislation, all domestic and foreign companies that accumulate, store, or process the data of Russian citizens must do it on servers physically located inside Russia's borders.

Russian authorities have very rarely enforced this new law. The most high-profile case remains LinkedIn, which Roskomnadzor banned in November 2016, and the site remains blocked to this day, according to Roskomnadzor's list of banned sites that local ISPs must block on their networks. Russian news agency Interfax, which broke the story earlier today, said Facebook did not represent itself in court.
Interfax also reports that Twitter was fined the same sum last week.
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Russia Fines Facebook $50 For Failing To Comply With Local Data Privacy Law

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  • Within the government, that is. The judicial folks enforcing the law probably think it's bullshit, so they just apply a slap on the wrist as a way of saying "We really don't give a shit."

    Whoever lobbied to get the laws passed is probably pissed now. This will likely cause more drama going forward.

  • by WankerWeasel ( 875277 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @06:04PM (#58429272)
    "Russian news agency Interfax, which broke the story earlier today, said Facebook did not represent itself in court." Well no crap. It'd cost you more to send a lawyer to show up in court for 15 minutes than it would to pay that fine.
  • In Soviet Russia, social media something something...
  • I was once in India for work, and failed to follow through on some bureaucratic paperwork that no one told me about. Once I figured things out, and went and filled the paper work, the bureaucrat goes "Oh, Mr. Strider-, there is a fine because you failed to fill out the paperwork." "How much?" "300 Rupees" "done."

    • This wasn't uncommon in former Soviet East Europe too. Certain import/export papers you needed were pretty much impossible to get. You could of course request them and with a few months of processing time you'd get them... or you'd simply accept the "fine" of about 10 bucks (west money, of course, payable immediately ... yeah ... right...) and suddenly the required forms miraculously appeared, pre-stamped and approved.

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