Xandr fined $9.6M in Norway over Grindr user data
Norway has fined Microsoft-owned Xandr 92 million kroner for passing Grindr users' data to advertisers, data that could reveal sexual orientation.
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giftdetect· the right gift in minutesEvery time someone opened Grindr between 2018 and 2020, their data was sent off to advertisers. Now Norway has fined Xandr, the ad company owned by Microsoft, 92 million kroner (about $9.6 million) over it.
The Norwegian Data Protection Authority says the violations ran from July 2018 to April 2020. Xandr acted as a middleman in automated ad auctions, the systems where companies bid in real time to show a targeted ad to a specific person. The data passing through could reveal the sexual orientation of Grindr users, and people had no idea how far their information travelled.
Why was Xandr fined over Grindr data?
Xandr told investigators it assumed Grindr had gathered the necessary consent from its users. It never checked. Norwegian authorities say that is not enough to comply with data protection law.
The case began in 2020 after complaints from the Norwegian Consumer Council and the Austrian privacy group noyb. Grindr itself was already fined 65 million kroner in 2021 over the same practices.
Why Microsoft has to pay
The fine is the largest the Norwegian authority has ever issued for data protection. It was calculated from Xandr's revenue, not Microsoft's, because Microsoft had not yet bought the business when the violations happened.
Microsoft said user privacy is a priority and pointed out that the events took place before it acquired Xandr. It had first said it would study the decision, but the Norwegian authority confirmed on 3 November that no appeal was filed. The fine is now final, and Microsoft inherits the bill along with the company.
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