Russia, in the
middle of a never-ending war with Ukraine, is going after Big Tech companies.
The Russian government has asked tech companies to store domestic user data
within the country. A Russian court, on Thursday, ordered WhatsApp owner Meta
Platforms Inc. and Snapchat owner Snap Inc to pay fines for their alleged
refusal to store data within Russia, Reuters reported.

Moscow’s
relationship with Big Tech has been strained for long. The United States
government’s relationship with major tech companies has consistently made
Russia jittery. Content, data and local representation in disputes have always
been contentious issues. But the relationship has suffered further in the
months after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine that began on February 24.

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WhatsApp was fined
18 million roubles ($301,255) by Russia’s Tagansky District Court. Only last
August, WhatsApp had incurred a 4 million rouble penalty. Google was fined 15
million roubles last month for repeated infringement.

Tinder owner Match
Group was fined 2 million roubles and Expedia Group’s Hotels.com was fined 1
million roubles and Spotify 500,000 roubles.

Russia’s communications
regulator Roskomnadzor said these five companies had not provided documents to
prove they were storing and processing Russian user data on Russian territory
in time.

Owing to the
troubles and rising acrimony, several companies have shut down operations in
Russia. Hotels.com closed its Russian point of sale on April 1, 2022 and
Spotify shut down its office in March. Moscow has restricted Facebook and
Instagram’s access after the war with Ukraine began. Critics of the Putin
regime say the controls on social media are an attempt to curb information
outflows.

“In the context of
the information war with the West, we are convinced that this law was necessary,”
said Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the Russian parliament’s committee on
information policy. “Only in this way can we ensure that foreign intelligence
services and all kinds of fraudsters do not get access to (the data).”