[egao1980]

As far as I understand those apps were illegally gathering and storing personal data - real names and addresses - storing them abroad - which is no-no not only in Russia but in EU (GDPR).

In terms of voting - people can still lookup candidates proposed by Navalny's team online without breaking the law.

Surprisingly most of them are from Communist party of Russia.

[tazjin]

> Surprisingly most of them are from Communist party of Russia.

It's not surprising at all. The communist party is the second-largest party here (polling at around ~20% in the last polls I saw). The point of the Navalny app is to highlight the candidates most likely to win against Единая Россия (Putin's party) in each district, which will usually be the candidate of the second largest party (with some exceptions).

(Just providing this information, I don't support Navalny)

[hvis]

No they weren't. The app doesn't need the name of the user at any step.

It wasn't storing the address either - it just has a search field where you input your address any time you need to use it.

[egao1980]

The Navalny's team promised to remove personal data tracking only on 8th of September 2021 (i.e. https://www.dw.com/ru/umnoe-golosovanie-otkazhetsja-ot-sbora...). And the case against the app was opened way before that.

[egao1980]

For curious - LinkedIn is banned in Russia for exactly the same reason.