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Grindr will be fined 100 million NOK, or approximately $ 11.7 million, by the Norwegian data protection authority for illegally sharing private information about Grindr users with advertisers, according to The New York Times.
Last January, the Norwegian Consumer Council filed three complaints against Grindr for sharing personal information, including the location of users and information about the device they were using, with advertisers. (One of those advertisers was MoPub, Twitter’s mobile advertising company.) Associating this information with a person could potentially indicate that person’s sexual orientation without their consent, and now the Norwegian authority to Data Protection is taking action against Grindr for this practice.
Grindr has until February 15 to comment on the Norwegian data protection authority’s decision.
“We are continually improving our privacy practices in light of changing privacy laws and regulations, and we look forward to engaging in a productive dialogue with the Norwegian Data Protection Authority,” said Bill Shafton, Grindr’s vice president of business and legal affairs, in a statement to The edge.
The app is not particularly known for taking great care of the safety of its users. Grindr was caught exposing users’ HIV status to two other companies in April 2018, which the company stopped doing. And with one particularly severe vulnerability, which we talked about in October, anyone with knowledge of your email address could potentially gain access to your account.
Grindr has a new owner after a U.S. government committee raised national security concerns over the app – it was sold by its Chinese owners to investor group San Vicente Acquisition in March 2020.
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