Video Meetings App Zoom Fined $1.18 Million In Russia For Operating Without Local Office

Zoom Video Communications was fined $1.18 million by a Russian court for operating without setting up a local office.

According to an RIA article that was cited in a Reuters report, judge Timur Vakhrameyev imposed the sentence at a tenth of Zoom's Russian income for the year 2022.

The Russian government is keeping an eye on foreign technology companies because of content, censorship, data, and local representation. This increased after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Zoom was fined 15 million roubles for repeated failure in previous week. This was done because it had failed to store data that it had on Russian citizen, on a Russian local server.

In recent years, other corporations, including Apple and Google, a division of Alphabet, have faced significant fines in Russia.

In July 2022, Apple was fined around $34,000, and Zoom and another company, Ookla, were fined almost $17,000 apiece.

The Russian regulator claimed the three businesses had not complied with requests from international entities to produce documentation attesting to the fact that local processing and storage of individuals' personal data takes place.

Zoom is a communications platform that allows users to connect with video, audio, phone, and chat. To use Zoom, you'll need an internet connection and a supported device. Most new users will want to create an account and download the Zoom Client for Meetings.

Zoom became a hit among the masses during the initial days of the pandemic in 2020 when everything from work meetings, to school lectures shifted to an online medium of communication.