Russia blocked access to LinkedIn in 2016 over rules requiring Russian users’ personal data to be stored on servers inside the country.
The dispute arose from Russia’s data-localization law, which had been in force since 2014. Russian regulators argued that LinkedIn was processing Russian citizens’ information without meeting the storage requirement. A Moscow court ordered the service blocked, and the decision was upheld on November 10, 2016.
Russian internet service providers then restricted access to LinkedIn, making it the first major service blocked under the data-localization rules. The ban also affected LinkedIn’s mobile apps: Google and Apple removed them from their Russian app stores in January 2017.
A common mix-up is China, where LinkedIn operated under local restrictions before Microsoft shut down its Chinese service in 2021. Kazakhstan also blocked LinkedIn later, in 2021, but that was not the 2016 case.