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Russia Demands LinkedIn App Takedown, Apple and Google Comply (fortune.com)

Posted by msmash on from the yes-sir-my-sir dept.

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.

11 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Lessons re-learned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just another reason Free Software is still relevant in the era of the app store.

    1. Re:Lessons re-learned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Right, with Free Software, you can write a competitor to linkedin, and STILL be forced to comply with the same goddamned restrictions that proprietary, walled-garden software is forced to comply with!

      The problem is not that they've somehow "locked up your data in a proprietary container." The problem is that the Russian government has declared that anybody offering a service like LinkedIn MUST store data for Russian accounts in a place where Russia has legal jurisdiction. Free software does NOTHING to change that, the only thing it does is allow you to build a "free" competing service, and get thrown in jail for flouting the same laws LinkedIn is refusing to follow.

  2. iOS users might be out of luck. by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 3, Informative

    Android users can easily recover.

  3. So? by c · · Score: 2

    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.
    1. Re:So? by fish_in_the_c · · Score: 2

      Do we get to push our laws into foreign countries?
      Yes, all the time. We arrested Manual Noriega who was the dictator of his own country from drug trafficking in his own country.
      We arrested a Russian citizen for break the U.S. DMCA in a way required by Russian law (when he landed in the United states for a conference).
      We try to force our laws to be enforced all over the world all the time.

      If so, can foreign countries start enforcing their laws in our country?
      Believe me they try. That is in some ways the point of the U.N. and international treaties etc.
      Do U.S. companies honor Russian and Chinese copyright? Many other examples here.

        More to the point, Russia wants to force any company doing business in Russia to host it's Russian data in Russia so it can enforce Russian laws related to Russian data without having to push it's laws into other countries. Pretty smart, even if it is a pain for internet companies. The intern is a jurisdictional nightmare, sooner or later the powers that be will find effective ways to adapt to it, this , although technically ugly does solve a lot of problems. Now any transaction with a Russian citizen is a transaction that takes place in Russia.

      --
      âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
  4. Can we talk? by CaptainDork · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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    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.
  5. Re:Censorship/User's privacy protection? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, Trump has been getting paid by laundering Russian money since then 90s with Bayrock Group financing him after US companies wouldn't touch his idiotic business practices - like being the only money losing casino in Atlantic City for years.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ct...

  6. Re:Website too? by Merk42 · · Score: 2

    So all Apple/Google did was pull apps that are essentially useless because they wouldn't be able to communicate with the servers to pull data anyway?

  7. Re:Ignore the law by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 2

    Have you heard of Uber?

    Kidding aside, historically it came down to if you had a legal presence in a place then you needed to comply with the laws of the place. Now things are much more muddled.

  8. Re: just do what russia wants by NatasRevol · · Score: 3, Informative

    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
  9. Re:Russia is not the only company to require this. by unrtst · · Score: 4, Informative

    The EU laws are similar, but different. They apply to companies with a presence in the EU, and protect the personal information of their citizens (data may not leave the country without dealing with more red tape). The RU law requires that the data be written to a server in Russia first, but the data may then leave the country - it protects their ability to access that data, rather than protecting the data. The impact is similar, but the differences are quite important.
    https://slashdot.org/comments....