Now Russia wants to do much more to block access by asking Google and Apple to simply remove the LinkedIn app from their app stores. The decision to ban LinkedIn Russia was taken in October 2016 in response to the decision of a court case. Failure to comply with the decision to maintain local users’ data on Russian territory has thus ended. Immediately, LinkedIn was blocked, becoming inaccessible in the country, either by the browser or the applications. Of course, there were soon enough ways to circumvent this block, using VPNs. But now the Russian government wants to completely terminate this access and has asked Apple and Google to remove the LinkedIn app from their stores when access is made on Russian territory. However, Apple and Google have yet to respond to this request, although the Cupertino company has admitted that it has been contacted to withdraw the application. On Google’s side, they have not confirmed the request, but have informed that they will comply with any legal decision that may arise. Companies will hardly be able to escape this decision, but if they do, they will be acting contrary to their official position. This will be just another situation where companies will have to comply with the legal requirements of countries, as it has happened recently. This comes at a time when relations between the two countries are blurred, then the US has accused Russia of interference in the results of the last elections.
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