Russia's decision to block public access to networking site LinkedIn creates a precedent that could be used to justify blocking access to other sites operating in Russia, RIA news agency quoted the US embassy in Moscow as saying.
"The United States is deeply concerned," RIA quoted an embassy representative as saying. "We call on Russia to immediately restore access to LinkedIn."
Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor recently issued an order against LinkedIn on their website that cited an original Moscow District Court decision from August to block LinkedIn.
Apparently, the social networking platform had failed to transfer Russian user data to servers located in the country thus, violating a law instituted in Russia which essentially requires all online sites to store personal data on national servers.
Now reports suggest, Roskomnadzor has officially started to enforce a proposed block on LinkedIn in the country.
LinkedIn confirmed the block to TechCrunch in a statement, ‘LinkedIn’s vision is to create economic opportunity for the entire global workforce. We are starting to hear from members in Russia that they can no longer access LinkedIn. Roskomnadzor’s action to block LinkedIn denies access to the millions of members we have in Russia and the companies that use LinkedIn to grow their business. We remain interested in a meeting with Roskomnadzor to discuss their data localization request.’
