LinkedIn officially KickedOut of Russia Russian telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor has made it official: LinkedIn is no longer welcome in Putin's formerly-socialist paradise. The regulator's brief statement confirms what we knew last week , namely that LinkedIn hasn't been able to satisfy Russia that it complies with laws requiring personal data to be stored on Russian …
I would think that the "letter" was sent to enquire as to why they did not comply. I'm sure LinkedIn was quite aware of the law in the first place, since it's similar to other countries and was much talked about when instated in September of last year. I'm puzzled as to why LinkedIn didn't just comply with the law of the country rather than pick a fight. What are they hoping to gain?
why LinkedIn didn't just comply with the law
Possibly because the investment required to store personal data on Russian territory wasn't justified by the amount of revenue they get from Russia? Or possibly because Russian territory will expand to include the location where the data is presently stored soon enough anyway?
It always amuses me that that customers "don't need to care about where the data is stored" for cloud purposes, but vendors seem incapable of managing their own cloud locations. Its cloud - its supposed to be all about modular, replicated architecture, automation and so on.
Of course, it could be that linkedin don't want to be liable to Mr Putin. The NSA generally keep their slurping quiet if they can, but I doubt Putin would be so careful. Being stuck with two competing, privacy-invading agencies might be more trouble than its worth.
Err, if the data is in Russia, they would have difficulty justifying three letter agencies spearhead attacks and data slurps, and it would be a serious crime.
They would be confronted with secret tribunals from both sides.. and my guess is that they decided the risk was too high.
BTW, LinkedIn served nice 0day trojans specifically for a single center on my previous company... that building is full of ppl working in clasiffied military projects..
Anon, as I no longer work there but I dont want to have more points.
But would have Russian accepted an answer from a different office, different from the one they addressed the request to? Formal requests - exactly because they are "formal" - have to follow the formally correct path.
But after all, probably the real reason is LinkedIn didn't accepted to pay the required bribe...
But after all, probably the real reason is LinkedIn didn't accepted to pay the required bribe...
You are mistaking Russia for Bulgaria. It is in Bulgaria "As our friends, Bulgarians say, whatever cannot be bought with money can be bought with a lot of money" (this is a quote from Costurica's Time of Gypsies).
In Russia, there are cases where it does not matter how big of a bribe you offer, noone will take it. Because "Mr Chrisoprase will be very unhappy". The issue of bringing in all data processing of Russian subjects within the legislative realm of Russian data protection is one of those. No bribes will be taken - everyone values their life more and does not want to end up like this guy.
That would be an honest mistake. LinkedIn built a new campus next to a neighborhood of Apple satellites. In the middle of moving, LinkedIn did a land swap with Google and decided to move their future HQ down the street behind Synopsys. (many blocks of abandoned HP buildings around there) Apple leased the new building that is no longer LinkedIn's future HQ.
re. wrong office - I'm pretty sure the Linkedinen decided to take a piss as they would with any letter from a regulator in a western country "sent to the wrong office", knowing too well the issue of where the letter should be delivered would be pushed back and forth for a century or so (meanwhile, business as usual!). How unfortunate this approach doesn't work in Putinoland! Schadenfreunde? You bet as it couldn't happen to nicer spammers!
Not the issue here.
The issue here is USA continuing to refuse to provide adequate data protection to foreign subjects. The whole thing was long in the making and all interested subjects could have made the USA government negotiate with Russia an adequate bilateral data protection agreement which is different from the usual "banana republic bend over and comply" (like Privacy Shield).
USA State Department, however, completely refused any negotiation (multiple times as well), despite that being clearly against USA business interests. While I can sort'a feel their pain, I disagree with the sour grapes approach. They have been trying "regime change" operations of all sorts for 20 years and have failed every single time. In fact, lately, Putin has been one move ahead of them most of the time. While doing that they have forgotten what they are actually paid for by the USA tax payer.
As a side effect this is also a protectionist measure. With the requirement for the operation to be locally self-contained it becomes more difficult to pretend that large part of the service happens elsewhere. So advertising (and other) revenue and income has to be declared locally and taxed correctly.
They simply want to have ready access to info without having to deal with the laws of other countries. Useless gesture. Those Russians who really want to work for non-Russian companies will simply use a VPN to access LinkedIn.
On a related issue, I wonder how long it will be before Russia reinstates the exit visa requirement of the Soviet era to try and stop the exodus of their best and brightest.
1. They are entitled to do so according to their laws using the procedures specified in them. I suggest you do some reading on the various cases with court orders to Yandex or v Kontakte to disclose mail or contact info. It is significantly more difficult to get that court order approved in Russia then let's say in the UK - you have to get a court order, definitely not "senior policemen signed it". National security is roughly the same - the difference is they were public about it since Putin put it in in the late 90-es, instead of lying and pretending it never happened like Mr Clapper and GCHQ.
2. This is different from USA pretending to own all data wherever it is located as per the case of NY vs Microsoft Ireland.
3. I do not think Russia needs any exit visas at present. The situation is vastly different. I spent there 4 years in the late 70-es. If you started spouting patriotic drivel at the family dinner table you would have been laughed at or taken aside to sober up.
In those days nobody valued the fact that they are Russian (or actually Soviet). It was something to be not discussed abroad - like a congenital condition. That is why you needed an exit visa (and an entry visa if you had a Soviet passport but permanent residence abroad - so you do not infect the locals with free thinking).
Situation has changed. You seriously have no clue of the level of nationalism and feeling of exceptional destiny raised by Putin in those who have remained. It is NUTs. I was unfortunate to sit next to a table with Russians on my last holiday in the Canaries for several evenings in the same restaurant. The way they were brainwashing their kids was... just... crazy. Reminded me of the eruption of nationalism in the USA fostered by Reagan just taken to an Nth degree. End of the day after my daughter (she is the only other Russian speaker in the family) started listening too and asking way too many pointed question we chose to sit at 4-5 tables distance.
In any case - the guys I am referring to were not exceptional or anything - typical Russian middle class as it is today. They do not need an exit visa. It will take a majestic failure at the top - something like a 8 year tenure of an imbecilic alcoholic ala Eltsin or an idiotocracy ala Brezhnev for them to lose their sense of manifest destiny and replace it with a sense of doom so that the powers that be will have to keep the corralled. I do not see that happening under Putin any time soon (if ever).
I deleted my LI account ages ago yet I still get their spam 203 times a week.
The Catch-22 is that they say that you need to login to change your email preferences but I don't have an account any longer so I can't log in.
LI suppoer ate F*****g Uselss and their emails come from different places so even blocking one address only works for one week or so.
I'd really like to have LinkedIn banned full stop.
Posting AC just so that I don't tempt fate and get yet more spam.
Linkedin has proven their data is available for sale, or not secure. If you believe their excuse that they just don't care about user data then you might accept their excuse of being hacked in which case Russia should protect it's citizens as all nations should.
If on the other hand, like myself, you don't think it is all that hard to take basic steps to secure other peoples data (which Linkedin has not done) then you do not accept the "we're stupid" excuse and Russia should protect it's citizens as all nations should.
The larger question is why is your nation selling or worst yet giving your data away to the world?
The larger question is why is your nation selling or worst yet giving your data away to the world?
My country did not sign me up to linkedin, it was my choice. If an individual doesn't sign up for any service where data is transferred outside the EU, how is their country giving away data?
Though that gives me an idea. There are >400 million people in the EU. How about generating a random database of 40 million records with plausible sounding names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mails and implausible national id numbers and then selling it for 1 cent per name? It would generate a nice profit and be completely useless and innocuous at the same time.
Countries could actually do that -- generate fake data and sell it.
Hello,
As you may have already learned, the government of the Russian Federation decided to block LinkedIn in Russia because we do not store the personal data of Russian members on the territory of the Russian Federation.
We are disappointed with this decision, which interferes with professional networking and the pursuit of economic opportunity for many of our Russia-based members. Additionally, we believe we are in compliance with all applicable laws, and we are currently evaluating the decision and our options. We expressed to Roskomnadzor, the relevant government agency, our interest in meeting to discuss their localization request directly.
Depending on how this decision is implemented, many of our services may no longer be accessible within Russia for some time. However, you could still access LinkedIn from outside of Russia. You can also still be found and contacted by others for career opportunities, receive relevant content over email, and other benefits.Therefore, we will keep your account open unless you tell us to close it.
If you purchased a paid LinkedIn service and can no longer access that service because of the government block, please let us know via email at linkedin_ru@cs.linkedin.com and we will make a prorated refund available to you.
Thank you,
LinkedIn Trust & Safety
A service provider I use fell for this, they put servers on Russian soil, all seemed OK for a while, then came the demand for details of people using the site.
The company declined and this went on for several months, then came the raid, all thei servers were stolen by the Russian authorities and they could not get out of there fast enough.
Luckily their servers were encrypted but who knows.
Russia does NOT present an opportunity if your business is going to be blackmailed, raided and maybe execs put in prison.
So leave them to their pathetic 143m market, most of which are poor, meanwhile continue to keep up sanctions because they invade sovereign states.
Well demanding data is one thing, raiding and taking servers is another.
We have seen that Russia alleges tax fraud of $2m of anyone who goes against them, others get put in jail.
I am no fan of what the US does but this does not make what Russia do OK
Unfortunately there is too much noise on social media today. It has become almost impossible to get attention and sell anything. This is what happens when channels get saturated. It pushes people to try and get more and more creative which only leads to higher costs in terms of time and money for a smaller and smaller reward. The most effective way and the only way that has held true for thousands of years is direct communication with the prospect. LinkedIn stands out for obvious reason. But even then the only valuable aspect of LinkedIn is the ability to connect to your prospect and start a conversion via chat. The system is simple. Send an invitation to connect and once accepted, introduce yourself to the prospect via chat. Then, try and move the prospect to continue communication via email or phone as soon as possible. Here is how I work and I get results:
1. I send out 50 invites a day. Out of these 10-20 will accept which equals to 200-400 new prospects a month.
2. I will then send a short intro message to the prospect introducing myself and my company (using www.linmessages.com to automate this as it can become frustrating rather quickly)
3. As soon as I feel the prospect is interested enough to continue the conversion, I try and get him to continue on email or phone.
It is simple, free and most importantly - effective!
Linkedin are one of the more egrarious spam outfits around.
Here's a clue: Someone else giving you my email address is NOT permission to bombard me with "requests" to join, without any way of disabling them (other than creating an account and then disabling mail, which gets toggled off every 12 months)
Eat shit and die, motherfuckers.
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