Grindr May Have Left Chinese App Stores Over Data Privacy Concerns

Supposition around what the heck happened to Grindr in China. Yesterday we heard that the LGBTQ dating app was out of Apple’s App Store in China, as well as Android app stores run by the likes of Tencent and Huawei. We also heard that it wasn’t the app stores that had pulled the app (at least not in the Apple store’s case), but that Grindr’s parent company had initiated the removals. What we did not hear was why, though at least one site says it has to do with relatively recent laws in China. 

Apple Insider cites an Engadget piece that says the issue may be tied to “China's strict new Personal Information Protection Law.” According to the piece:

China passed the Personal Information Protection (PIP), the world's strictest user data protection law in August 2021. The country has since been using the PIP law in a month-long “internet purification” campaign around China's Lunar New Year.

Engadget says that China’s PIP requires “that cross-border data transfers go through China's Cyberspace Administration.” Apple Insider says:

Homosexuality is not illegal in China, but the LBGQT+ community faces continued pressures, including occasional censorship. It's likely that Grindr users would not want their personal data seen by the Chinese authorities, but it isn't clear how much international traffic the dating app had.

So, that’s the latest guess as to why Grindr is gone in China. It seems the only party to have said anything publicly is Apple, having made clear that it was Grindr’s parent company that pulled the app from the App Store, not Apple. Grindr’s parent company has “not publicly commented on the reasons for its removal,” according to the report.