Last July we reported on two stats from Apple's financial conference call regarding Russia. The first was that Russia was in the top five countries for App Store downloads in calendar Q1; the second was that Apple's business grew 97% in Russia in Q1. Apple opened their online Apple Store in Russia last summer but that could be jeopardized over the next 18 months. We reported at the time that we had learned that the Russian Parliament had passed a bill requiring internet companies to store Russians' personal data inside the country in an apparent move to pressure sites such as Google, Facebook and Twitter into handing over user data. Yet depending on the language in the bill, we noted that it could easily apply to Apple who stores Russian consumer data from the Apple Store in the US. Today we're learning that Russia's new law will go into effect on September 1, 2015.

Organizations need to prepare contingency plans for business processes and IT systems to store some or all data in Russia. In just over two weeks, Russia will implement a new personal data law (242-FZ Law) requiring that the personal data of Russian citizens be stored in Russia from September 1 2015 reports Gartner.

Carsten Casper, managing vice president at Gartner stated that "By the same date, all companies processing personal data of Russian citizens in databases located outside Russia need to make their systems compliant with the new requirements.

This new law will have a major effect on Internet organizations, as well as online stores, online resources used for booking airline tickets and hotels, insurance companies and other organizations, as they will have to change the way they store information on Russian citizens.

With Apple knowing that this law was in the making for over a year, Apple's online Store is likely to be in full compliance of the new law. It's highly unlikely that Apple will try to make waves in one of their key emerging markets.

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