LinkedIn to be blocked in Russia; Google, eBay, Uber, and Booking.com have moved | Hacker News Reader

LinkedIn to be blocked in Russia; Google, eBay, Uber, and Booking.com have moved

washingtonpost.com

17 pointswfunction16 comments

I'm going to take heat for this position, but....

> Access to LinkedIn will be blocked in Russia after the U.S. social network failed to move personal data storage to the country, the country’s communications watchdog Roskomnadzor has said.

Is it morally wrong that Russia is trying to rein in powerful companies which have proven to be very friendly with a government which is aggressive to them?

I do not like LinkedIn. And I don't like Russia's approach to Internet governance. So I appreciate every punch dealt in this conflict. Can't be cheering though when I know that projects which I do like get the same treatment.

The law in question is 242-FZ. It has nothing to do with censorship, but to do with data localization: Keeping the data of Russian citizens within the border of Russia.

With the adoption of the GDPR by the EU in 2018, such approaches may become more common.

What if someone violates 242-FZ? His website will be blocked i.e. censored. 242-FZ is about destroying the Internet.

What bothers me is, how do they tell someone is a Russian citizen?!

No one knows. No one cares too. The gist of this action is to use censorship as a tool to make money.

Respect to LinkedIn as they don't play by rules of idiots. Shame on Google etc who supports and promotes censorship by accepting the rules of censorship

It's not about censorships by Russia, it's perhaps opposite of that - Russia wants to protects its citizen from the prying eyes of foreign government.

Putin accused companies such as Google and Microsoft of collecting user data and handing it to the CIA, branding the internet a “CIA Project”. The Kremlin went as far as recommending Russians avoid using these online products because everything was monitored. It must be noted, though, that other nations, including the European Union, Canada and China, have enacted similar data security policies in response to news of government online surveillance and other unauthorized access.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/denielmero/2015/02/20/google-hea...

Exactly. I wasn't sure if I should bother because usually on HN I'm alone on this. But for example Germany has very strict rules in this respect, maybe even more so than Russia, and I don't hear anyone calling it censorship.

Does Germany block access to websites? Does it make Google to pay for datacenters in Germany to avoid being blocked (censored) in Germany? Internet ends when every country will start to force everyone else to do what they think is good.

It is about using censorship as a weapon to reach someone’s interests. Can’t you understand that it will kill Internet one day? LinkedIn as long as 50000 other websites are blocked in Russia now. Putin is a dictator. He never protects the interests of the people. He and his friends just make money on it and make with propaganda people to think that it is for their good. Russian police sell personal data in the black market. “recommending” is not right word for website blocking by DNS and IP What are guaranties that Google and Microsoft don’t provide user data to CIA if it is in Russia?

Problem that if LinkedIn and other companies will store data in Russia, they will be forced to share user's personal data with Russian government.

Well they're being forced to share their personal data with the American government now, so... just a different brand of the same thing.

I’m sure that now both CIA and Kremlin have access to user data in Russia. So in reality user data becomes less and less secure after such actions.

Why is that a dumb rule? The NSA is gonna have a much harder time tapping into Google's cables on Russian soil.

Because in digital world physical geo-location doesn’t matter at all unless you want to fool someone. Google can store data in Russia but give access to it to CIA. Google can store data in USA but make it impossible to access by CIA.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com