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."

Comments

Honest doubt

[ruir]

What the hell has USA to do with the will of a sovereign country? Are you fucking joking with us?

Re:Honest doubt

[Archtech]

There is a powerful segment of opinion, mostly among the rich and influential in the USA and elsewhere, that nation states are on the way out, to be superseded by some vague but wonderful world society. Rather less wonderfully, two forces look set to take over the power and authority that nation states are supposed to relinquish: multinational corporations and the US government. (Those two forces, of course, are far from separate and in fact are heavily intertwined). These ideas are associated with the so-called "neocon" movement.

In this particular case the argument is that the Russian government has no right to insist that its citizens' data must be stored only in Russia. Information wants to be free! As for what right the US government has to dictate to the Russian government, well that is the issue that is being tried right now. If the Russians had stood for LinkedIn's previous practices, that would have been one tiny step away from national sovereignty and towards the rule of corporations. (As prefigured by TTP and TTIP). Now that the Russians have come out against the practices, Washington denounces them for being petty tyrants.

The only national government that is not scheduled for destruction under this scheme is, of course, the US government. Well, someone needs to be at the wheel while the world undergoes creative destruction! Thus the US government is the only one that stands relatively unchallenged by corporate power. Perhaps, gradually and almost imperceptibly, the US government might shade into a world government. However, the recent moves by the BRICS and others to reduce their reliance on and commitment to elements of the Washington-centric world structure, such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the ICC, suggests that many national governments are fully aware of the plan for their dissolution, and have no intention of going quietly into that good night.

Re:Honest doubt

[NatasRevol]

I wonder how long before the left passes out from hyperventilating?

Probably about the time all the white supremacists Trump is installing choke us out.

Re:Honest doubt

[unixisc]

Not just that, why is the US involved in what is essentially a transaction b/w a foreign country and a multinational corporation, like Microsoft? And how does it affect US national interests regardless of whether or not LinkedIn is banned?

Re:Honest doubt

[Narcocide]

I gotta admit I'm having trouble feeling sorry for LinkedIn here too. They've run afoul of US privacy laws too. We just don't seem to have any teeth in our privacy laws here.

Re:Honest doubt

[Hylandr]

He didn't get our guns because we remained vigilant.

Re:Honest doubt

[rtb61]

You'll be buying nothing, you are the one to be bought and sold. The US government is already owned by multinational corporations and those corporations are just using the US government that they already own, to extend their ownership to all the other nations across the globe and basically enslave everyone. Real full fledged delusional nut burgers, they call people crazy when that is pointed out because yes that stuff is crazy but they still try to do it. It's simply time to get those crazies out of executive boardrooms and politics and into insane asylums where they can attempt to cure them. They will always try and always fail but they will cause considerable harm in those attempts, real harm, millions do actually die as a result.

So does the US government care, nope, they were simply instructed by their corporate owners to issue that stupid statement and they did. A corporation, paid a lobbyists to issue an instruction to an owned politician and that owned politician obeyed that instruction with complete total and utter indifference to the outcome. Mind you this statement coming out within days of a complaint by the US government about the Russian government interfering in US sovereignty because they apparently non US lobbyist approved methods ie paying those US lobbyists to do it.

There is a good reason

[Archtech]

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.

Re:There is a good reason

[MightyYar]

It's not reasonable if I have it right. Slashdot probably has "personal data" about Russian users, but is not intentionally stored in Russia. It's a law completely at odds with the global, distributed nature of the internet.

Re:There is a good reason

[MightyYar]

It will do a little of that, but I suspect the consequences will lean heavily toward even more speech suppression of the Russian people.

Re:There is a good reason

[Archtech]

"19 Oct 2016 - Russian unemployment rate was recorded at 5.6 percent in May of 2016, down from 5.9 percent in the previous month. The figure came below market expectations of 5.8 percent and was the lowest October 2015. The number of unemployed people decreased by 217 thousand to 4.3 million". http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

Re:There is a good reason

[Cederic]

Nonsense. LinkedIn is used as a recruitment aid but it's a single website and not even the first one I'd go to for job hunting.

When it's not the first one anybody would go to (in Russia) then others will step in and provide the needed services.

Obey the letter of the law.

[kaatochacha]

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.

Re:Obey the letter of the law.

[Archtech]

Yes, they'll never notice. Russians know absolutely nothing about computing.

Linked-in had their chance

[frovingslosh]

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.

Re:Linkedin provides a service in Russia so it sho

[Archtech]

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....

How is this different from...

[mongothesecond]

... UK laws requiring data and operations to be physically located there?

Re:How is this different from...

[lxs]

I'm not sure that the UK is the best example to choose from.

Re:The real issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Most ironic post ever.
The real issue here is censorship and control. The US, like many countries, wants the ability to censor and control the Internet, and like all such countries gets fucked off when another country refuses to allow it to spy on their citizens.

Remember that Russian media is State-controlled

Yes, totally unlike the corporate-controlled American media.
ANYONE who thinks for a second that the US media didn't collude to...
-stop Ron Paul from having a chance at becoming president
-stop Burnie Sanders from having a chance at becoming president
-stop Donald Trump from having a chance at becoming president ...had their fucking eyes closed. They collude to control the outcome of elections to try to make sure non-establishment politicians have no chance.
The US media is worthless. Absolutely worthless.
Is Russia's media any less worthless? Maybe not.

Re:The real issue

[anegg]

Or the U.S. policy on web-based gambling... see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_gambling and scroll down to the section on the United States.

Because USA

[Anonymous Coward]

... to block public access to networking site LinkedIn ...

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.

Hidden agenda?

[manu0601]

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?