Russia Fines Facebook $50 For Failing To Comply With Local Data Privacy Law

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.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.