14 DAY TRIAL // Russia is going forward with its plan against foreign software companies, this time with a ban of LinkedIn, the social networking site that was recently purchased by Microsoft.
The country’s communications watchdog Roskomnadzor announced today that LinkedIn failed to comply with local laws that require companies in the country to store user information within Russian borders, so access to the service will be removed in a few days.
Vadim Ampelonskiy, spokesman for Roskomnadzor, said in a statement that other companies, including Google, eBay, and Uber, have already moved data on local servers in order to comply with the regulations that came into effect last year.
Microsoft not yet willing to comply with the laws
At this point, it’s not yet clear if Microsoft is planning to move user data to Russian servers in order to align with the requirements of the government, but LinkedIn said in a statement that such a decision impacts millions of users who access its service on a regular basis.
“The Russian court’s decision has the potential to deny access to LinkedIn for the millions of members we have in Russia and the companies that use LinkedIn to grow their businesses,” LinkedIn explained in a statement.
“We remain interested in a meeting with Roskomnadzor to discuss their data localization request.”
“LinkedIn failed to provide documents on moving personal databases to Russia,” Russian authorities replied.
Requiring companies to move data to Russian data centers is part of President Vladimir Putin’s plan to cut dependence on foreign software, which he claims could be used by other countries to spy on Russia.
Starting January, Russia also has laws that require domestic companies to buy only locally-developed software, as the government has created lists of alternative software to foreign solutions, including here products developed by Microsoft, such as the Office productivity suite.
We’ve reached out to Microsoft to find the company’s position regarding the imminent ban of LinkedIn in Russia and will update the article when an answer is provided.