Zoom Video Communications was fined $1.18 million by a Russian court for operating without establishing a local office, according to Reuters, citing RIA.
Zoom became popular during the COVID-19 epidemic and has since been the most popular video conferencing platform in the previous three years.
There is no disputing that everyone enjoys the illusion of receiving something for nothing. This is an absolute fact. With certain constraints, freemium provides a high-quality product. Zoom‘s marketing approach includes a freemium model in which the essential functionalities are available to everyone but just for 40 minutes if you want to meet with more than 1 to 100 individuals. This gives you a taste of grandeur while still leaving you wanting more.
During the epidemic, people desired to become involved in group gatherings, whether for job or social reasons. They also desired that the calls go longer than 40 minutes, particularly during the zoom drinking game socials. In a wise move, the Zoom meeting marketing team determined that the ideal time for a conference call was 45 minutes. Reducing that 5 minutes was already inconvenient for those who were winding up. This prompted them to choose a legitimate Zoom app subscription.
Zoom generates revenue from membership fees, device sales, advertising, and investments in other firms. Customers may use Zoom’s goods for free since the firm runs on a freemium model. Customers will have to pay a price if they want to use more sophisticated capabilities, such as hosting up to 500 people and recording conversations. However, Zoom has begun to monetize freemium consumers by introducing advertisements.
The punishment was set at a tenth of Zoom’s Russian profits in 2022, according to the RIA article, citing judge Timur Vakhrameyev.
Foreign technology businesses are on the Russian government’s radar in terms of content, censorship, data, and local representation, and this has increased after Russia launched troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
Zoom was fined 15 million roubles last week for failing to save data on Russian individuals on a Russian server on many occasions.
Other businesses, like Alphabet’s Google and Apple, have been substantially punished in Russia in recent years.
In July 2022, Apple was fined over $34,000, while Zoom and another business named Ookla were penalised nearly $17,000 apiece.
The Russian regulator said the three businesses were not complying with requests that international corporations produce paperwork verifying local storage and processing of individuals’ personal data.
According to the article, soon after Russia launched a “military operation” in Ukraine, it blocked Facebook and Instagram, claiming Meta was found guilty of “extremist activity” in Russia, which the company disputed.
