Norway fines Microsoft’s Xandr $9.6 million over Grindr data sharing
Norway’s data protection authority has fined Microsoft’s adtech unit Xandr 92 million crowns ($9.61 million) for unlawfully relaying Grindr users’ sensitive data to thousands of advertisers, it said on Monday.
Xandr relayed data revealing the sexual orientation of users of Grindr, a dating app for LGBTQIA+ people, to companies in automated ad auctions from July 2018 to April 2020.
It is the biggest fine the Norwegian authority has issued, and targets the advertising middlemen rather than the app itself. The regulator said companies that traded in people’s data could not pass the blame to others.
