Fonts, CDNs, and Hosting: The Cross-Border Data Transfers No One Notices
A Russian developer building a contract-processing service discovered that his website was silently sending visitor data to foreign companies despite keeping all contract data on Russian servers. The site used Vercel for hosting, Google Fonts across 33 pages, and Cloudflare's cdnjs for PDF and Word libraries, exposing IP addresses, browsers, and browsing history. Under Russia's 152-FZ, such transfers require a separate notification to Roskomnadzor, and the United States and EU are not on the list of countries with adequate protection. The developer migrated fonts and libraries to his own Russian server, moved hosting domestically, and updated his privacy policy after a single console command revealed the external domains. The case highlights how common web practices like loading Google Fonts or using CDNs can trigger strict data localization and notification rules, with fines reaching millions of rubles for violations.
HabrOct 4, 2026Translated from Russian