The clash on all fronts between Russia and the West continues. As reported by Reuters, in fact, the Kremlin has fined the video streaming service of Amazon Twitch, the social network Pinterest, the platform for short-term rentals of Airbnb and the international parcel and shipping company UPS (United Parcel Service). The reason, as well as the amount of the fine (except for UPS), is the same: the companies have been found guilty of refusing to keep the personal data of Russian citizens within Russian territory.
THE PRINCIPLE OF FINE WEIGHS MORE
The Tagansky court, therefore, issued a fine of 2 million rubles (only 1 million in the case of UPS) for each of the parties involved: if Russia’s position on these issues is unfailing, the punishment is however decidedly not rigid, and more symbolic than anything else, given that it is the equivalent of a fine of about 34,000 euros – a figure that certainly does not bother any of the giants involved.
It all lies in stating once more that the behavior of companies in the field of data processing violates Russian legislation on the matter. Twitch, Airbnb and Pinterest, contacted by Reuters, preferred not to comment on the situation, while UPS released a concise statement via a spokesperson:
“We are reviewing the court decision. As this review is currently underway, we cannot provide any further information at this time.
With the same arguments, Russia also fined Google 15 million rubles (268,000 euros approximately), again in June, after having already imposed a 3 million rubles fine last year.
The explosion of the conflict in Ukraine on February 24th fatally ended up exacerbating the tone of contrast that over the years was becoming increasingly difficult and problematic between Western companies in the technological panorama and Russia on issues such as content, censorship (see the ongoing clash with Wikipedia, for example ) and data retention.
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