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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.

6 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. 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.

    --

    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.
  4. 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
  5. 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....