LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, may
turn out to be the first casualty of Russia’s Federal Law On Personal Data.
MOSCOW, November 16. /TASS/. Russia’s telecom and IT watchdog Roskomnadzor on Thursday announced it has banned LinkedIn and instructed telecommunications operators to block the world's largest professional network.
"Based on the court’s ruling that entered into
force, the LinkedIn social network has been included in the registry of those
violating the rights of personal data owners and is to be blocked by
telecommunications operators," Roskomnadzor said in a statement.
Last week, the Moscow City Court rejected the appeal of
LinkedIn against its blocking in Russia for violating the law on personal data
localization. Under the law, the personal data of Russians can be processed and
stored only in Russia.
Roskomnadzor’s spokesman Vadim Ampelonsky said the
watchdog had twice sent requests to the network on informing it about the
implementation of demands on relocating servers to Russia but received no
response.
The social network says that the LinkedIn Ireland
company is responsible for processing the personal data kept outside of the US
rather than LinkedIn Corporation, which is defendant in the case.
However, Roskomnadzor insisted that LinkedIn Corporation
as the domain name administrator was responsible for all information and
services offered by the social media network.
The LinkedIn social networking service was founded in
December 2002 by US entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, who was vice president of the
Paypal payments system. LinkedIn has more than 400 million accounts. In June
2016, Microsoft bought the website for $26.2 bln.
Source: ITAR-TASS 17-11-2016
