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Russia Demands LinkedIn App Takedown, Apple and Google Comply (fortune.com)
Russia has forced Apple and Google to remove the LinkedIn mobile app from their Russian application markets, the latest chapter in a months-long campaign against the professional networking site. From a report on Fortune: A recently-passed Russian law requires that any company holding data on Russians house that data within Russia. Russia began blocking LinkedIn's website last November under that law, which some critics argue is an indirect form of censorship. The removal of the LinkedIn app from Apples App Store and Google's Play shows the willingness of major internet gatekeepers to comply with individual nations' data-control laws, on both the web and mobile devices.
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So does Donald Trump use an iPhone or an Android?
Just another reason Free Software is still relevant in the era of the app store.
Yeah. I don't like Putin in the least. That said, I'm more and more uneasy seeing how "our" and "their" leaders are resembling more and more each other -- and this with the consent (no: with loud acclamation!) of the majority (btw. as Putin or Erdogan have).
Fucking scary, if you ask me.
If anyone is so overwhelmingly attracted to the idea of allowing a company like Apple or Google to control the "application market" that they see, then they deserve to not have many applications, and for their computer to be significantly less capable than everyone else's. The whole point of turning all your selection power over to some company, is to personally have less power. So this works out great.
Meanwhile, in Real Life, the market simply is the market. Nobody can remove someone else's product from it. Imagine how amazingly absurd that would be. The only way to get to that level of absurdity, would be to buy a computer where someone else controls what software you're allowed to use.
All of this shenanigans goes away when the smart programmers finally start deploying decentralized apps, where there is no central point on which an inherently corrupt actor (such as any government) can put pressure. In the future, there will not be "a" LinkedIn or "an" Uber, but rather a cloud of participants so large that there's no conceivable way to "turn it off". The future is an immortal decentralization of intent.
Android users can easily recover.
If Russia has any clue, the LinkedIn domains are already blacklisted. Removing the apps shouldn't be much more than adding insult to injury.
And since Android users could sideload it, it's practically ineffective unless Apple owns a much larger chunk of the Russian market than they did last time I looked.
Log in or piss off.
The removal of the LinkedIn app from Apples App Store and Google's Play shows the willingness of major internet gatekeepers to comply with individual nations' data-control laws, on both the web and mobile devices.
Since exactly when have any company on earth managed to ignore the existing laws in countries where they operate?
I would imagine both their apps and the website pull the data from no Russian servers. So is linkedin.com blocked in Russia?
I believe several European countries have similar mandates.
And an international company, whether that is Apple, or Google or Linkedin, usually has to comply with the laws of the country they operate in whether they like those laws or not. Unless of course they choose to abandon that market altogether.
Cue all the paid Russian/Trump trolls who will now post and tell us that this is somehow a good thing.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
How would Trump get his money transferred then?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I don't give a goddam rat's ass about LinkedIn.
It's a spammy piece of shit that's been hacked over and over again and it's useless a tits on a boar.
It's business model is just like the fucking dating sites.
--
Russian is a sovereign country and can do whatever the shit they want.
I'm in another sovereign country and I convinced management that LinkedIn is crappy.
It's banned.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Do we get to push our laws into foreign countries?
If so, can foreign countries start enforcing their laws in our country?
Their house, their business. Our house, our business.
Push products they do want and maybe they'll change the mind on products they don't.
And seriously, would you want your private information stored on a server in a foreign country? Seems like a no brainer for Russia.
Work Safe Porn
But apple will not help the FBI! trump needs to put tim cook in his place.
Why are they so impatient?
Just a few more weeks and every database in the US will be hosted in Russia.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Is all the data in Google Play and Apple app store about Russians stored on servers in Russia?
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
...with Free Software, you can write a competitor to linkedin,...get thrown in jail for flouting the same laws LinkedIn is refusing to follow.
I disagree. These folks are complying for profits - they take down those services but yet keep other business in that country. You really think if Apple says FU that Russia is gonna somehow imprison Cook? Nah. Or the directors or stockholders? Plah-ease!
Those companies are doing what they are doing to keep other businesses they have in that country. THAT is the only leverage the Russian government has: REVENUES!
So, a F/OSS version can just say FU - so, our version is not offered in your country .... or is it? *wink-wink-nod-nod-someone-sneaks-it-in*
They still supply lots of fine porn.
One the one hand, I can understand a state's desire for requiring a company that stores information to do so in a location that would subject them to the privacy laws in place...
On the other hahttps://apple.slashdot.org/story/17/01/09/1345234/russia-demands-linkedin-app-takedown-apple-and-google-comply#nd, sometimes the best way to win an argument and show the error with the opposing parties position, is to give them what they want. So google and apple "capitulating" will make a valuable service unavailable to the citizens of that jurisdiction, which will result in public dissatisfaction with the outcome and a demand for change from within.
If LinkedIn doesn't want to establish an office within that jurisdiction, they can choose not to, but don't get to cry about a competitor stepping in to fill the vacuum.
Russia is doing the right thing for their citizens here. App owner refused to store citizen data in country, app gets blocked. That's how it SHOULD be. Otherwise, your citizen's data is available to others without going through your country's due process. Worse, if it's stored in the US (where I live) there is no due process if the data isn't stored in your home.
Canada has laws restricting the location of data to only Canada based on which province your business is located in, if your business operates in the private or public sector and which industry your business works in. So do other countries. Please stop with the "Russia is evil" crap. Are you gearing the sheep up for a war or what?
A country stepping in to ensure data being held by foreign entities is protected within its data infrastructure. What's wrong with that? How do you guys feel about YOUR data being held offshore somewhere???
Like many of you, I was wondering "OK, so why don't they just spin up a few AWS or Azure instances in Russia to make their government happy?"
Then I realized that AWS doesn't have a hosting center in Russia. Neither does Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud.
All of a sudden, it looks like they would have to make a custom one off server farm to appease Russia. It probably isn't worth the effort for them to do so.
Trump just calls the Clinton Fdn, the Clinton Fdn call the Saudis, Saudis call Russia, who transfers money to the Clinton Fdn, who then transfers it to Trump.
is what I would tell both the Russian govt AND Linkedin,Apple, Google, etc.
That said, If you're already playing at this table (superpowers, national sovereignty, "anti-globalism", etc), censorship in service of extortion seems anti-climactic. Even if the extortion didn't start in Russia.
If you don't want to be on the internet, you can just keep off it, you know. But that's not what you want, is it? You want *other* people to stop talking to Russia, you little fascist.
While both have very dubious accounting practices, only one foundation actually helps people. Well, people besides Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Had it been American authorities, Apple would've put up a heroic fight. But helping Russian (and Chinese) efforts to keep tabs on their citizens and enable dragnets by foreign governments — well, that's just complying with local laws, nothing to see here.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
LinkedIn has failed its Russian users big time. There is no business reason not to arrange the necessary infrastructure to keep a 140-million country on. People must not have to surrender their personal data under foreign law - which they cannot possible influence.
If all they are trying to do is keep their citizen's data within their own country and out of foreign hands, I don't see the problem. We bitch when China hacks our credit cards, so finding legal loopholes to do the same thing when companies have no business to personal info isn't so different, regardless of how "righteous" you think yours is.
They've got a law that states companies holding data on their citizens must keep that data within their own borders. This is great, and they have good reason to have such a law. The icing on the cake is that they're actually trying to enforce the law.
LinkedIn, the world's largest spam network, being the current whipping boy is a bonus. I doubt LinkedIn has much of a Russian userbase, so if it comes down to it LinkedIn can just never comply with Russia's laws and Russia can't do shit beyond try to block their website in a continual cat and mouse game.
Google and Apple care about their Russian market enough to enforce Russia's laws. This isn't news. They already bend over backwards for China. The US government and media were hypercritical of China until Trump happened, now they're just trying to flip the script and put all of that bad juju on Russia.
Of course these corporations comply with the law! I mean, in general I believe all US Corporations attempt to comply with laws. Would you want corporations to only comply with the laws they agree with?
No.
Of course not. You just don't like this law so you bitch about it.
You are a fucking moron.
If you don't want to be on the internet, you can just keep off it, you know. But that's not what you want, is it? You want *other* people to stop talking to Russia, you little fascist.
Why don't you first prove that talking to Russia is worth it to people *other* than criminals, you ignorant shit.
Here is a scenario. Let's say I was a Russian who came to the US for a few days, visited the Apple Store on my phone, downloaded all the banned apps, including LinkedIn, and then flew back there.
Once I was back, how would either the Apple Store - or the Play Store - not having the app online - be of any use? Particularly if I disable the app store once I am back?
With Trump likely to normalize relations with Russia there will be a massive outsourcing of engineering work that formerly had been blocked by export controls. By not playing nice with LinkedIn Russia is screwing over candidates to fill those jobs. This only makes sense if they have some other state-run service to take the place of LinkedIn.
Um, if that's the law, shouldn't Russia just cut off the external internet completely?
How would Trump get his money transferred then?
Operatives exchange briefcases full of cash for envelopes of IOUs at Checkpoint Charlie.
from someone who lived there 4 years of his adult life:
russia is a great place to live for a few years. the girls are super young and hot, easy as hell to fuck, don't mind you fucking all of their friends. if you're a chump like most of you people on slashdot though, you'll fly away there with blue balls and empty pockets.
and.. that is literally all russia is good for. a fun place to live with great clubs and lots of hot easy pussy. there's ukraine, belarus, etc - a slightly uglier and less fun but much cheaper fun place to live and fuck lots of still-much-hotter than american pussy.
many agree with Russia on this wholeheartedly. Fuck the USA in this regard
Where is the link to this story? :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Links to Clinton supporting fake news central Washington Post, which is retracting "Russian hacking" stories daily.
Some people don't like being eskimo brothers with a whole country.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure