Apple has been threatened by Russia for failing to follow directives in terms of storing user data. And that could again come in the form of hefty fines as mentioned today.
Other names that have recently been added to the list include Airbnb, Pinterest, UPS, and Twitch. And they’ve already received their fair share of fines ranging from 1 to 2 million Russian Rubles.
Thankfully, the sums aren’t too huge to break their bank balance but again, it could be avoided.
A report by Reuters recently confirmed more details about the incident where a court in Moscow claims to have fined the tech platforms on Tuesday as they refused to oblige Russian directives and store the country’s citizens’ data on its servers.
We’re seeing Moscow crash big time with these leading companies in terms of data storage, censorship, and general posting of content. And the dispute is getting heated ever since the company has been fighting a war in Ukraine.
While the first-time offenses may seem to be small fines, there could well be possibilities of another huge fine as the country has in the past shown that multiple fines are something they never hesitate in doing.
For repeat offenses, previous data shows how the fine continues to move in an upscale direction. Let’s take a look at search engine giant Google for instance. They’ve already reached fines amounting to $340,000.
The reason being is repeated failure of the same offense so a first-time warning should give these tech companies a good idea to shape up or pay the consequences.
On most occasions, it’s not uncommon to see Apple obliging to rules delineated in the nation that it’s currently operating within. But in Russia’s case, it seems to be a major exception. Could this be a willingness for huge tech giants like Apple to try to prove a point by defying a superpower like Russia?
If you remember back in 2018, Apple gave in to China’s law that was something related to what Russia is now asking for.
As it is, Apple has previously revealed that it is really bending backward in terms of its cooperation with sanctions that Russia has been slammed with, post its invasion of Ukraine.
Apple has blocked any payments being channeled from the country and has even tripled the amount of humanitarian aid to those organizations assisting Ukraine. These were all done after receiving instructions from CEO Tim Cook.
But now, the Russian government has proven to the world that they’re going to be busy censoring news because they want the official updates to come out through their channels only. And if that means generating more fabrication tales and fictional facts about the ongoing war, then so be it.
This ultimately saw the start of millions of VPN apps being downloaded through the App Store as many want access to sites other than those belonging to the government.
