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LinkedIn-Russia: US Says Concerned Over Decision to Block Professional Networking Site (ndtv.com)
The US government said on Friday it was deeply concerned over Russia's decision to block public access to networking site LinkedIn, saying it created a precedent that could be used to justify blocking other sites operating in Russia. From a report: LinkedIn, which has its headquarters in the United States, is the first major social network to be blocked under a new law that requires firms holding Russian citizens' data to store it on servers on Russian soil. Internet services analysts say other tech firms, including Facebook and Twitter, could also find access blocked unless they move data onto Russian-based servers. Maria Olson, spokeswoman at the US Embassy in Moscow, said Washington urged the Russian authorities to restore access immediately to LinkedIn, and said the restrictions harmed competition and the Russian people. "The United States is deeply concerned by Russia's decision to block access to the website LinkedIn," Olson said in a statement sent to Reuters. "This decision is the first of its kind and sets a troubling precedent that could be used to justify shutting down any website that contains Russian user data."
What the hell has USA to do with the will of a sovereign country? Are you fucking joking with us?
Meddling in shit that has nothing to do with them. Then again, I guess they want to bring people's attention towards Russia so they can demonize them as much as possible.
I'm confused as to what the US wants to do to remedy this. LinkedIn is not the government, and if it chooses to operate in another country then it must abide by the laws of that country. Which in this case involve using local datacenters. Some countries (Japan) have requirements to use paper documents. What is so strange and unsettling about this? Why does this involve the US government?
The rationale is that LinkedIn has not promised to keep personal information about Russian citizens on servers that are physically in Russia. The government believes that information on Russian citizens should be stored in Russia only. That seems a reasonable principle for a government to follow.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Have servers in Russia and pay taxes in Russia and no this law wont impact mom and operators just large multinationals like Linked in. Joe's Steak Knives wont be required to house Russian data on Russian servers unless Joes has a million Russian users in which case Joes better start looking for rack space or a Russian cloud provider.
Russia has a $20 billion budget deficit its looking to plug. Facebook, LinkedIn,Google and Twitter can plug a nice big chunk of it.
Run everything from wherever the hell you're currently doing it. Have a synched copy on a server in Russia that's encrypted up the wazoo. Never use it for live traffic.
that it didn't think of it first.
The real issue here is censorship and control. Russia, like many countries, wants the ability to censor and control the Internet, and like all such countries, finds that they can't pass laws to do that because the Internet isn't always inside their borders. Therefore they want to force all companies accessible over the Internet within Russia to be physically present within Russia proper, so that if they decide they want to censor them, rifle through their stored data, or shut them down completely, they only have to send armed personnel to the physical location and make it so. It starts with sites like Linkedin. Once Linkedin caves in and complies, then precedent is set to force all other websites to do the same, or be prevented from being accessible in Russia. This naturally would have a chilling effect on freedom of expression, free speech, and the exchange of information between individuals. Remember that Russian media is State-controlled; they want the Internet (all of it, ideally) to be State-controlled, too. Does Russia have a right to do this? Yes; whether it's right or wrong is a matter of personal philosophy and personal opinion. In my opinion, it's wrong. You'd have to poll the Russian citizenry to know whether or not they think it's right or wrong -- but chances are your poll would be censored by the Russian government, and if you were in Russia at the time, you'd likely be detained because of it (how dare you question the government!).
Just to make myself 100% clear: I do not, and am not, and will not, 'demonize' Russian citizens; I do however very much question the actions of Vladimir Putin and the Russian government.
Russia simple said that if you store citizens social media information for that country then you have to do it in that country. Considering the abuses that data is subject to when it is stored in the United States, it is had to say that such a requirement isn't reasonable. Not that I trust Russia to not commit the same or similar abuses, but the Obama administration is completely hypotricital in saying that Russia is in the wrong here.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Russia has a $20 billion budget deficit its looking to plug. Facebook, LinkedIn,Google and Twitter can plug a nice big chunk of it.
Er, 'For FY 2016 the federal budget estimates that the [US] federal debt will increase by about $1 trillion. That's about $250 billion more than the official “deficit.”' http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us...
So the US government must be 50 times as hungry for extra revenues as the Russian government. Furthermore...
"On January 26, 2016, debt held by the public was $13.62 trillion or about 75% of the previous 12 months of GDP. Intragovernmental holdings stood at $5.34 trillion, giving a combined total gross national debt of $18.96 trillion or about 104% of the previous 12 months of GDP". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Meanwhile Russia's national debt is 9.7 trillion. Oh, what's that you say? That's in rubles? So what's it in dollars? Oh, I see: about $151 billion. Gee, that's awful - that's nearly one percent of the US national debt. Those Russians are in real hot water now! http://www.nationaldebtclocks....
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
... UK laws requiring data and operations to be physically located there?
We should block LinkedIn here in the US too.
Whenever a company sets up a registration page on the Internet, they do not setup infrastructure in every potential customer country. That places undue burden on startups to invest in various upfront startup costs.
And when a foreign citizen signs up on the Internet, they might not be physically in the location of their (single or multiple) citizenship. The website cannot reliable ascertain when a registered user is accessing from their country of citizenship or simply a country of access (e.g. cybercafé).
Whatever the reasons driving Russia's desire to have greater access to their citizen's information, they should simply be more dramatic and sever themselves from the Internet. This would assure that only Russian-hosted properties would be accessible to Russian -- but of course I doubt it has to do with Russians-within-Russia who rely on Russian ISPs.
What's most likely: Russia is interested in monitoring Russians abroad. Since Russia cannot [legally] monitor foreign ISPs, they want the foreign web properties their citizens do visit to relocate their operations domestically.
Their end-game: greater access to information of Russian citizens abroad, including ex-pats and refugees.
http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-coffee-americano-rusiano-medvedev/28124812.html
FACT: 9/11 was an inside job perpetrated by individuals in the US government
FACT: Remember Iraq?
FACT: Remember Ghdalfi ?
Here's some more facts for your dumbass:
NICARAGUA 1894 Troops Month-long occupation of Bluefields.
CHINA 1894-95 Naval, troops Marines land in Sino-Japanese War
KOREA 1894-96 Troops Marines kept in Seoul during war.
PANAMA 1895 Troops, naval Marines land in Colombian province.
NICARAGUA 1896 Troops Marines land in port of Corinto.
CHINA 1898-1900 Troops Boxer Rebellion fought by foreign armies.
PHILIPPINES 1898-1910 (-?) Naval, troops Seized from Spain, killed 600,000 Filipinos
CUBA 1898-1902 (-?) Naval, troops Seized from Spain, still hold Navy base.
PUERTO RICO 1898 (-?) Naval, troops Seized from Spain, occupation continues.
GUAM 1898 (-?) Naval, troops Seized from Spain, still use as base.
MINNESOTA 1898 (-?) Troops Army battles Chippewa at Leech Lake.
NICARAGUA 1898 Troops Marines land at port of San Juan del Sur.
SAMOA 1899 (-?) Troops Battle over succession to throne.
NICARAGUA 1899 Troops Marines land at port of Bluefields.
IDAHO 1899-1901 Troops Army occupies Coeur d'Alene mining region.
OKLAHOMA 1901 Troops Army battles Creek Indian revolt.
PANAMA 1901-14 Naval, troops Broke off from Colombia 1903, annexed Canal Zone; Opened canal 1914.
HONDURAS 1903 Troops Marines intervene in revolution.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 1903-04 Troops U.S. interests protected in Revolution.
KOREA 1904-05 Troops Marines land in Russo-Japanese War.
CUBA 1906-09 Troops Marines land in democratic election.
NICARAGUA 1907 Troops "Dollar Diplomacy" protectorate set up.
HONDURAS 1907 Troops Marines land during war with Nicaragua
PANAMA 1908 Troops Marines intervene in election contest.
NICARAGUA 1910 Troops Marines land in Bluefields and Corinto.
HONDURAS 1911 Troops U.S. interests protected in civil war.
CHINA 1911-41 Naval, troops Continuous occupation with flare-ups.
CUBA 1912 Troops U.S. interests protected in civil war.
PANAMA 1912 Troops Marines land during heated election.
HONDURAS 1912 Troops Marines protect U.S. economic interests.
NICARAGUA 1912-33 Troops, bombing 10-year occupation, fought guerillas
MEXICO 1913 Naval Americans evacuated during revolution.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 1914 Naval Fight with rebels over Santo Domingo.
COLORADO 1914 Troops Breaking of miners' strike by Army.
MEXICO 1914-18 Naval, troops Series of interventions against nationalists.
HAITI 1914-34 Troops, bombing 19-year occupation after revolts.
TEXAS 1915 Troops Federal soldiers crush "Plan of San Diego" Mexican-American rebellion
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 1916-24 Troops 8-year Marine occupation.
CUBA 1917-33 Troops Military occupation, economic protectorate.
WORLD WAR I 1917-18 Naval, troops Ships sunk, fought Germany for 1 1/2 years.
RUSSIA 1918-22 Naval, troops Five landings to fight Bolsheviks
PANAMA 1918-20 Troops "Police duty" during unrest after elections.
HONDURAS 1919 Troops Marines land during election campaign.
YUGOSLAVIA 1919 Troops/Marines intervene for Italy against Serbs in Dalmatia.
GUATEMALA 1920 Troops 2-week intervention against unionists.
WEST VIRGINIA 1920-21 Troops, bombing Army intervenes against mineworkers.
TURKEY 1922 Troops Fought nationalists in Smyrna.
CHINA 1922-27 Naval, troops Deployment during nationalist revolt.
MEXICO
HONDURAS
1923
1924-25
Bombing
Troops
Airpower defends Calles from rebellion
Landed twice during election strife.
PANAMA 1925 Troops Marines suppress genera
To this date, Motorola remains banned in Russia, due to a government opponent's one time success selling the phones. Reason: "They're unsafe." Right.
VKontakte, a blatant clone of Facebook is doing perfectly fine, and very popular, as is their infinite music piracy service. Nothing to see here, move along.
Lesson: When in Russia, choose your business friends carefully. And stay out of politics.
Drop their ASNs from the BGP tables on all US edge gateways. Fuck them up their stupid fucking backwards asses.
How do you control information? With guns and bullets.
Honestly, having LinkedIn blocked is the least of the worries that US should have about Russia.
They installed a sympathetic president. I would say they have good enough professional network.
Don't complain when Russia blocks sex-ed and homosexual web-sites, the USA's been there. Nor when foreign cooked foodstuffs are banned, the USA (and other countries) have been there.
Russia has also banned yoga for being a religion, street-side bible-bashing and George Soros in the name of national security, US bureaucrats, Microsoft software and foreign GMO foodstuffs (a mostly US export).
Despite the obvious anti-US sentiment, the US government complains only when the daily correspondence of Russian residents can't be copied to US servers. That nicely reveals US priorities.
This is 100% about having physical access to the data, nothing to do with protecting it.
I want in on some of THAT shit... and the twitter and fakebook... ALL that crap... and their tracking cookies too.
Each country wants the exclusive right to abuse its citizens.
Why is the US so concerned about LinkedIn being banned from Russia? Many US services are based from China, which is a much larger market than Russia, so why do they bother here?
Russia has privacy laws that need to be respected. LinkedIn is the first company to defy that without much success. Comply or GTFO.
It's a filter to filter out the people you don't want to have as employees. For example it constantly bugs you to give them your e-mail accounts so it can get your contacts!
The Russia economy is nowhere near as diversified as the US's. Russia is highly dependent on fossil fuel exports and the low price of oil is hurting them badly.