I'm from Russia, so I guess I could add some context here. A while ago our parliament created a pack of laws to "protect personal data of russian citizens". One of them ordered internet services to store all of the user data of russian citizens on servers, that are physically located in Russia. This law is in power since the beginning of 2016, but many big sites like LinkedIn and Facebook just ignored it. State authorities did nothing about it, but finally, in November they blocked LinkedIn in Russia, so now we ought to use some VPN or proxy to access it. And now they want to remove their apps from stores, despite they don't work without proxy as well.
I used to hold similar position on evil west vs. free and for people Russia.... Before I immigrated to the West. I got access to a whole lot more information, I got to live outside of that mentality for a long period of time now.
I saw the 90's first hand. My family struggled through it. I was in one of the top schools (a la Russian MIT), making 20$/month.. Barely enough to cover metro cost and not enough for food 3x per day.
At the same time as my family was struggling, the president and his oligofriends were stealing and robbing the country. As poor as I was, being at one of the top school allowed me to have friends ... Who had friends - kids of the elite. You see, they tend to send their family abroad, kids go to private British schools. They often have dual citizenships, own real estate and investments in the "evil west".
It's a two faced reality, with one face they are critics, with another - they pose for foreign citizenship application.
To your comment on the power grab by the "west" and the international elites - yes, it is real IMO. But be careful - watch who is using who to gain that control. The government over there and the judicial systems are not to be trusted.
The information grab here is obvious - why give up info on Russian citizens for free to linked in , Google etc.? Of course Russian GRU/FSB etc want to have their hands in it too.
The 90's were courtesy of the west, who sent 'advisers' to Russia to help with the transition to capitalism. Most of the issues the west has with Russia today have to do with the fact we wanted them to stay in the 90's... That was the ideal as far as our leaders are concerned.
> I got access to a whole lot more information
No, you just got access to a different kind of propaganda.
You think families don't struggle here, while the elite take in bribes, engage in cronyism, and send their kids to elite schools? The Clinton's weren't worth hundreds of millions before Bill took office, where did they acquire their wealth? All our corporate 'elite' control our governments, they bribe them (sorry, 'lobby'), and get favourable business deals. The only thing the west has going for it is that people are distracted enough by our relative wealth (enough to buy iPads and shit) to be complacent to all these issues...
The 90s really weren't courtesy of the West. I understand this line of thinking, and I don't want to suggest that the West's handling of Russia in the collapse of the Soviet union was ideal. I know that it wasn't.
But the idea that west successfully privatized Russia in the malignant way you describe would require the existence of institutions powerful enough to enact such a change in the collapsing Soviet union. This has no basis in fact. The West did not have this kind of influence, in large measure because the West did not have viable agents or institutions to mediate such power.
The truth is that the kind of plunder that occurred was a natural consequence of the Soviet economic order, as well as the lack of institutions (and norms) required to sustain a functioning market.
If you are genuinely interested in this topic, please do reach out to me via email – it's in my profile. I'd be really happy to talk more about this topic, and even send you a book or two on it!
While I don't think the west necessarily intended for the Russian economy to collapse, they definitely tried to impose certain policies on Russia in an attempt to remake it into an American-style capitalist state, 'shock therapy' and the 'Washington consensus' were real things that were prescribed, and of course there was also military action taken to weaken Russia's influence as well (NATO expansion).
Anyhow, there were a number of American economic advisers who worked for the Russian government during the 1990's, and to say they had no influence is plain wrong.
I'm happy to talk about the ways in which NATO expansion was a questionable choice, as I am inclined to agree, but that's not what you originally contended.
Russia had a Rust Belt orders of magnitude larger than the United States. It had a factory system optimized on quotas decades out of date. It had no real infrastructure for resolving economic disputes in legal terms. It had a factory manager class with little accountability.
You say these Americans worked for the Russian government. What departments? Do you think those departments had adequate control of their own police forces to enforce such policies? How do you suppose these forces would have been funded?
My point is that you are mistaken about the extent to which a Russian state was a viable entity during this period. Without an effective state, there is no real way for the west to exert the kind of influence you describe. The Washington Consensus was real, and its importance exaggerated by its exponents in the US.
To say Americans had substantial influence on Russian economic policy is indeed plain wrong. I would be honored to send you a copy of some books that explain this, and include abundant primary source documentation of my claims.
Please feel free to email me at my address as listed in my profile. I think you might really enjoy a copy of Armageddon Averted by Kotkin. It is a very enjoyable account of this era, and it quite deftly addresses your contention.
Perhaps decades later ex CIA operatives in their memoirs might reveal the extent to which the agency was present and involved in the events during that period.
It's naive to think otherwise considering they were all over various banana republics with much less at stake..
The CIA had virtually zero footprint in Russia throughout the Cold War. All in all, it is not a remarkably effective institution for collecting human intelligence or for sabotage – the United States IC is far superior with signals intel. Much of our history as a nation over the last 50 years reflects this; consider, who brought Khrushchev's secret speech to the United States? It wasn't a CIA officer or asset.
It is very naïve to think that the CIA is as potent as you do.
You seem to be assuming that there was a much better path that Russia could have followed, and that if the US had stayed out, it had leaders with the intelligence and good motivation to carry it out.
I find that quite dubious. For leaders it had Yeltsin who you have to admit was quite incompetent, and a bunch of greedy old Soviet officials who had been responsible for the collapse of the USSR. The liberals were weak and disorganized, and the public was simply lost.
Perhaps I am wrong, but I get the impression that you, like many, believe the West is not only entirely evil, but is the source of all the evil in the world. If I an reading you wrong, please make clear what you do actually believe.
What really is a shame is the waste, a number of industries collapsed simply because of negligence and greed, not just in Russia but throughout the former soviet block. Quite a lot of factories were very specialised and one of only a few in the world, instead of building industries locally they were sold to foreign companies (the examples I know of were Indian so it's not just US) where they were promptly shut. They were bought simply so that there wasn't competition.
A lot of effort and blood went into building the soviet union and it was very sad to see a lot of that work simply thrown away.
I don't idealise west. I see propaganda on both sides of the fence. If anything living in Russia for extended period of time ( my formative years) made Me distrust all authority. Yes, multinationals were involved in the robbery of Russia in the 90s and they were helped by many who are still in power today and in the government. That's my point.
The fact today in Russia is that all power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of a well connected corrupt circle of people. They and their extended families stand to gain from the policies of the current "regime". The rest of the country stands to lose. It hurts me to see this, as I am working hard to get the rest of my family outta there ( its not easy to immigrate despite what Trump and others say)..
As I said this two faced regime with one hand criticizes the west and with another buys up properties and investments abroad to eventually to retire to with their families.
How come Putin sent his own daughter to live and work in Europe for extended period of time? How come members of his cabinet own real estate in London, Spain etc? When Russian mafia was busted in Spain, how come no one from the gov went to jail even though connection was pointing all the way to the top? The judicial system is rotten. Judges are simply executing orders from the top!
Its sad what's happening there and I don't see a good ending any time soon unfortunately. I could stay and fight...but what for? Ruin my life? Jail time for speaking up?
No thank you.
I grew up in the US and lived in Moscow for 6 months. The people aren't different -- just like Americans, most people are focused on jobs, paying rent, friends, their kids, dinner, lovers, TV, etc. They mostly don't pay much attention to what their/our government is really doing.
The primary use of America for Russia and Russia/Muslims for America is to have some Other to point the finger at and blame for the outcomes of the ruling class' economic policies.
ps -- For every pro-Putin Gopnik voter, I counter with southern white trash on Obamacare, Medicare payments for "disability", and meth who voted for President (I just threw up in my mouth a little) Trump.
Well, let's not under play the fact that Russia was and still is a resource rich country that everyone would love to have a piece of. At home and abroad. If you are interested - track down the story behind aluminum and diamond trade in the post USSR era. Very fascinating and reflects the general trend in the country.
To reiterate nooron's point, the West wasn't exactly helpful during the oil shock that ended the USSR and the transition to democracy, but to blame the US for the oligarchs / theft of public resources is going way too far.
BTW, if anyone is interested in the fall of the USSR, Yegor Gaidar, an economist, acting Russian PM from June '92 to Dec '92, and architect of the shock therapy reforms immediately post dissolution of the USSR wrote a book about it. I highly recommend it if you're interested in economic history.
Oh is this 242-FZ? If so, that ate up like most of my Q3 2015.
My cynical reading of the law was that it was aimed more at having data physically on hand if it needs to be subpoenaed. But IANAL, so maybe I'm just being too cynical. Also what I did or didn't think of the law doesn't matter really, since higher ups decided what was to be done about the law, and I just implemented it.
I think that law was just blatant incompetence. For one there is no process for verifying whether or not you actually store anything in Russia. And even then, there's not much of a point in having a physical access to that data unless somebody is stupid enough to store it in plain text.
Not quite. They just require that you adequately protect PII. Since that is very expensive to do, only large companies tend to do it. Smaller companies probably just ignore it...
I disagree that it is reasonable, but that's why these things are good for at least vote if not left up to consumer choice. I couldn't imagine if my country disabled access to worldwide internet services to protect my data. At some point, citizen choice is valuable, and I as a citizen would like to choose to have my data stored in another country if I wanted (and use services that do so).
I agree in principal but consider this. In real terms this law really only creates and UI/UX problem for LinkedIn at a fundamental level. Sort of like hiding some settings in a config file or behind an "advanced users only!" warning, LinkedIn now requires you connect via a VPN/Tor to use it's services. I feel that the users informed enough to setup a VPN are more likely to also understand the implications of giving personal information to LinkedIn.
This has a side effect. If LinkedIn wants to do business with Russia it has to allow access from VPN services. Thus allowing for greater piracy for internet users everywhere.
I really really don't like this sentiment. "In real terms" meaning that you have to intentionally break the law. And only advanced users can get the benefit of worldwide internet services otherwise banned. Granted this is an easy opportunity for a whataboutist, hypocrisy point here concerning other countries, and I'd agree with those countries being incorrect too.
We should not be encouraging laws like this, and definitely not excusing them by saying that advanced users can circumvent them. If the Russian government really wanted to protect citizens, why not put laws in place on data protection requirements as opposed to data location requirements? (hint: it's because they don't want to protect the citizens)
None is disputing that every country can pass whatever laws now having companies care about operating in a given country is very influenced by the GDP and the local laws.
The US-EU Safe Harbor Agreement requires that US companies follow the EU's requirements for preserving the privacy and security of users, but allows them to store data in the US.
Thanks for sharing. I believe this is entirely reasonable given the trend of data breaches, which occur everyday. LinkedIn suffered one of the largest breaches, which compromised millions of users.
Corporations think that they can disregard the laws of nations and act as independent entities. They use their financial power to influence legislation and steal freedom from individuals. Unbiased regulation is needed to stop expropriation.
It's a shame that the article depicted this as censorship. Russia has been under heavy and unjust criticism for quite a while now.
It wasn't a physical data breach, so I don't think it would make much of a difference. Presumably, it's a way to force Linkedin (and others) to have a subsidiary in Russia (legal entity), which can then be sued if there are problems with regards to Russian law.
On one hand, I fully understand your concern. I'm in Canada and the local governments pressure companies such as Netflix, Google and others to have registered legal entities here so that they can apply Canadian law (privacy, tax and language requirements).
On the other hand, Russia does not have a good reputation with regards to neutral application of the state of law. Furthermore, Russia does not have good privacy laws. Linkedin probably doesn't have the same resources/expertise as they do in the US. (as a Canadian, I never host my client data in the US for this reason.. it's not that the US is so terrible (although it kind of is w.r.t. privacy/NSA-stuff), but if something happens, we don't have the resources to deal with it)
This has nothing to do with security. If anything, maintaining data centers on a per-country basis would be harder to protect.
In-country data requirements add a level of bureaucracy to the web that is just bad for users, as well as companies trying to innovate. This is a combination of both censorship and protectionism.
This is a pretty confused and not very informative article. There isn't the slightest attempt to find out what the purpose of those "local laws" is.
Censorship, consumer protection, privacy, anti-trust, protectionism, tax avoidance, law enforcement, it's all basically summed up as "Foreign governments causing trouble to US companies"
That's pointless because it doesn't help putting pressure on the right party in the right conflict for the right reason.
These laws join other laws, the so-called anti-terrorist package from August 2014, which require service providers (defined very broadly to include such things as social networks and ISPs) to provide user data to the authorities upon request. If the server is physically in Russia and controlled by some Russian subsidiary, it is much harder for a company to evade such an order.
Few people even bother to pretend that this is about anything other than closer control of Russian internet users by the Russian authorities. There is a weak spin about protecting the data of Russian users from foreign governments by placing it within Russia, which makes zero sense, since nothing prevents an American company from giving user data from its Russian server to the American government.
And before someone says that the US does the same thing, note that something like 1000 people have already been imprisoned in the Russian Federation over various online comments and posts, and even Facebook likes. The fact that the US violates privacy also doesn't mean that it's all the same thing.
"The demand by Russian authorities to remove LinkedIn in Apple and Google app stores comes weeks after a court blocked the professional networking service for flouting local laws that require internet firms to store data on Russian citizens within the nation’s borders."
Given NSA's monitoring activities, this is a surprisingly reasonable law. Maybe not a great one, but certainly reasonable. I wonder if the NSA activities will prove to be a watershed that kick off a tide of tech-nativism.
Given what I've heard about NSA, they are far more reasonable than our FSB (successor of KGB if anyone doesn't know). Our guys can easily use their right to "take for investigation" some servers just to protect a business of some of their colonels or friend of a colonel. And that makes storing a data in Russia a bit of a lottery.
That's the thing. In the modern secular state you need a Constitution which is essentially a covenant between man and his government, that the government is actually representing will of the people. Without that sort of secular, yet holy, document and corruption you get this sort of cronyism in which a normal honest man does not have rights or the same rights as corrupt people with connections do. This then makes everything more difficult and unpredictable. The Russians and the Soviets before them have never figured this out. We still have problems when this sort of behavior seeps into our system, but we have pretty good ways of controlling this behavior, and a general revulsion of the public against it, helps keep it under control.
There is no formal document called the constitution of NZ.
What we have is an "uncodified constitution" which means that while there is no formal constitution there is an informal one made up of a number of laws, treaties (most noticeably the Treaty of Waitangi), precedents, and pretty much habits which give us our sovereignty and rights.
According to Wikipedia the only countries without a constitution are NZ, the UK, Saudi Arabia, and perhaps Isreal.
So it seems that it's not important whether or not you have a constitution, what is important is simply how accountable the people hold the government.
An interesting fact, which illustrates the point, is that there are laws which state that Te Reo (Maori) and NZ Sign Language are both official languages of NZ (along with regional languages on some of the other Islands) there is no corresponding law for English, yet most of the country speaks it and all laws are drafted in it (along with Te Reo).
My point was not that you need a written document called a constitution, merely what the document above states:
"A constitution is about public power, the power of the state. It describes and establishes the major institutions of government, states their principal powers, and regulates the exercise of those powers in a broad way. While all constitutions have these general characteristics, each constitution is affected by the national character of the state it services."
In the US it's a written document and it's held sacred by most Americans. But you don't need that, just what is mentioned above which I quoted. In either case it's a covenant with the government which limits the power of the government and protects the rights of people. You need that and you also need a lack of corruption, which in general terms means the government abides by the constitution. If you have these two things than the common man can expect to be treated a certain way by the government regardless of any of his or her affiliations and so on.
Well, I don't understand what your initial point is because every country has a constitution then - including Russia.
The difference between is that in New Zealand the "constitution" is fluid and is very easy to change because it's simply laws.
This is way off topic, but I think holding the constitution as some sort of semi-religious document is actually a bad thing, for instance the right to bear arms is seen by the rest of the world as quite odd and very scary. If people weren't so fervent about the document you can look at it objectively and make the required changes to reflect the times.
Reasonable? It actually makes the NSA's job easier. The major constraint on the NSA is the requirement to at least pay lip service to the idea that they are not spying on US citizens. By neatly separating out foreign data, this law actually helps them. In the US the NSA is constrained; in other countries they can operate with impunity.
If that's true it would suggest to me it really isn't about privacy but it's about the ability of the Russian government to get at the data. And that makes sense.
I guess LinkedIn itself is just being used as an example. It is a smaller fish compared to Facebook or Google, and the Russian citizens are not as dependent on it, so it is a good choice to set an example.
Why everyone wants to have local data is more interesting. I can think of some points:
- The US wields a lot of soft power by virtue of the fact that a lot of user data about members in other countries lives here.
- Other countries want the ability to block access to particular sites and the user data at will without having to go through US law.
- Hampering growth of US companies helps local copycat companies grow.
- Requiring local servers, local office, make in X etc. promotes local economic activity.
There is a critical mass of people who need to be using these services for these points to be viable. China clearly has more than the critical mass, so they easily get away with this sort of behavior and it does them more good than harm (I think). EU probably has it. Russia alone probably does not.
>It is a smaller fish compared to Facebook or Google, and the Russian citizens are not as dependent on it, so it is a good choice to set an example.
Not necessarily accurate. LinkedIn is a Microsoft company and I wouldn't exactly call them a small fish. This might just be the first of many protectionist measures Russia will be adopting.
Data jurisdiction is by itself an enormous and nuanced topic. There's a very interesting case to be made about giving your users a choice, as both having data in your own country or some foreign sovereignty come with different trade offs.
This is Russia's way to 1. Strike back at the US for the economic sanctions 2. Strengthen its economy by allowing local actors to develop without competition 3. Ensure that all major networks are within state control.
It's non-trivial for these companies to switch storage, and it's also dangerous as that makes them more vulnerable to government snooping.
Not just snooping, but seizure and blackmail... sure would be a unfortunate if we had to remove these servers for a little examination, maybe you can do something for my little friend?
This is not just a rogue request from some crazy official, but part of a larger plan to subdue and scare off foreign tech companies and replace them with 'local' tech, controlled by the state.
These people are not playing games - this is ideological warfare in action.
Tech companies should get political - that means get ready to temporarily loose certain markets in exchange for defending some core principles.
They might refuse to accept it, but tech companies are currently the most powerful (dormant) political players in the world - this is why Putin et al want to either control or eliminate them.
They should ignore the request, then be ready to close their offices and offer to relocate all employees to a foreign country.
No Google, AppStore and Google Play means back to the 90s.
> No Google, AppStore and Google Play means back to the 90s.
You severely overestimate how dependent your average Russian is on these.
Forget Google, etc. According to the most authoritative public opinion pollster, 58% of Russians would not mind the Internet shut down in case of a national threat or mass protests (I.e. what happened in Turkey last year):
>This is not just a rogue request from some crazy official, but part of a larger plan to subdue and scare off foreign tech companies and replace them with 'local' tech, controlled by the state.
Do you think EU's heavy handed regulation on web services is similar? I think you could make the case that it's also a form of protectionism.
The comparison is obviously warranted. I'd argue that there is a difference b/c:
- The EU has a history of relatively strict data privacy laws, whereas Russia has no credibility in regards to any civil rights. whatsoever.
- The EU is a much larger market than Russia. It's therefore unlikely that any significant companies would choose to leave the EU market and create an opening for local companies. Only a few data centers may be needed in the EU, and they just don't employ people or pay taxes in relevant amount.
- Storage-in-the-EU is not actually a requirement – companies may store data anywhere as long as they can provide for the required safeguards.
- I'm not completely firm on the genesis of the new data protection regulation, but I believe it was actually a reaction to the EU's Court of Justice's rulings (the "right to be forgotten" and the Facebook case). I have a hard time believing Supreme Court justices ruling with protectionism in mind.
If tech gets political, the rest of the world will ban them far faster. The only reason american tech got so far was by not being political. Once the rest of the world found out the depth of nsa access, they freaked out.
Dont underestimate the desire for national sovereignty, the anti globalist reaction worldwide is strong proof.
> This is not just a rogue request from some crazy official ...
This post is a mirror image of the opinion espoused by pabloski, yet he got downvoted. It would appear some people want to live in an echochamber where only the point of view they espouse is published.
I personally think both sides of any argument deserve an airing
> No Google, AppStore and Google Play means back to the 90s.
Not really because then Yandex App Market would just spring up overnight. There's technical know-how in Russia and the funding to make sure things get built to keep the money flowing domestically.
(Amusingly, I'm posting from the back of a Yandex taxi)
Nope, Putin, that won't make the LinkedIn requests stop.
Fun aside I can understand that authorities would try new approaches on smaller players first. The quality of the administrative insight isn't necessarily tied to the scale of the targeted platform.
I always found it bizarre that nations would allow a situation to arise where a foreign nation builds up a massive database of all/most of their citizens conversations and relationships and movements.
I mean. Would the US be OK if a company under Russian jurisdiction had a database of relationships and conversations and movements for most US citizens? Does not seem sane to me.
I don't know what the solution is really, other than blocking access.
> It puts Apple and Google in a difficult position.
I don't think so. Both Apple and Google have always been crystal clear that they mean to follow local laws. I don't see how removing these apps in Russia would be of any trouble to them.
The US blocks websites that violate copyright law, because it's seen as important for US business to do so. Different countries may have different priorities on what they censor, but all do censor. How is this different?
Economics vs speech. The US sends people to jail if they break laws with regards to the economy (if you're on the wrong side of the status quo), whereas Russia sends people to jail if they philosophically disagree with the status quo.
I'm not sure why LinkedIn is being targeted for privacy concerns. The entire point of the site is having a presentable, public profile. Most users want others to see them in the way that their LinkedIn profile depicts them to be. A large percentage of LinkedIn users purposely make almost all of their LinkedIn information publicly available.
This is as opposed to more private data like personal, private messages on social network sites (I assume most LinkedIn messages are professional and tame), browsing history, etc.
> The companies are strong proponents of open internet policies and free speech but are now being asked to be agents for governments that censor its citizens.
What does requiring foreign companies to store data of a country's own citizens within its borders == censoring citizens?
Because you are asking Russian citizens not talk to those companies. That is the censorship. They were giving the information up freely in exchange to linkedin's services, it is not like LinkedIn was spying and collecting the information themselves.
No. They're asking foreign companies operating in Russian to store their data within the borders of the country, where the Russian gov has control + sovereignty. When a douchebag agency like NSA/CIA have direct back access (and sometimes provided by the company), it's possible that LinkedIn is involved and is therefor spying on citizens of other countries for the benefit of the US gov.
Nothing unexpected is happening. They have a law that requires storing Russian nationals' data on servers physically located in Russia. Linkedin refused to follow the law and got what was coming. While the law isn't that great, it is still there to be complied with.
Except that almost nobody complies with that law. This is more like making an example out of a linkedin and attempting to gain power over internet companies, they have been doing this for a few years already.
I think it's more of an internet company trying to run a business in a country without respecting the law which applies to you if you do business there.
This is in fact the case for many countries beside Russia and there is no valid reason for another country to allow a company, which is running operations from a country known to not respecting a persons privacy regardless of its citizenship, to run a business in your country without been able to protect your citizens.
It can (and should) actually work like that. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yick_Wo_v._Hopkins ("Racially discriminatory application of a racially neutral statute violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.")
Nobody really knows. Presumably they just wanted to test it out on some big enough company (even though LinkedIn is anything but big in Russia). What's more weird is that LinkedIn just outright refused to comply, when all they had to do was issue an announcement and maybe rent some servers in Russia (don't even have to use them).
Our new data protection laws won't kick in till 2018. I expect the NYT will then write a large article about how undemocratic the EU is after companies get fined for disobeying (this is assuming they don't manage to work around it with a new privacy shield that somehow makes it okay to store the data on US servers and rendering the whole protection meaningless).
it's not feasible. But it's not the point for Russian authorities, otherwise they would have to ban a lot of different sites:
a) any Internet store - like Amazon, Ebay, AliExpress you name it, as they all hold some 'private data' including name, address, cc info etc.
b) any booking site - same as Internet stores
c) any website which deals with Russian citizens - e.g. foreign embassies :)
so the point is to try to block a big Internet entity and check if there is any backslash, any reaction or any anything :)
Sounds like they are trying to get the same deal most of the EU countries have, Germany, France, ... Where user data has to be stored in the home country.
The truth is irrelevant. We are in the middle of a new Maccartist era, and Russia is ( again ) the big bad bear.
They ( the transnational oligarchy based in the US and UK ) are trying the last power grab and Putin is trying to block them. This is the reality in a nutshell.
We can discuss about the nuances, but this is a power fight. Pure and simple.
Russia obviously wants to survive in this fight, so it is trying to block its dependance on the west as much as possibile, starting with the new economy ( internet ). The western powers ( the ones who rob us workers of our savings ) want to extend their reach over the entire globe and Russia + China are the last bastion against this dystopia. Yes, there are elites, oligarchs, bad guys in Russia and China too, but they are too small to be a real danger for us ( the people ).
So, what you say is true, but i suspect the western media will spin it in a way to make Russia look like a dictatorship, ruled by a mad tyrant who wants to go to war against the world.
Nobody needs Russia to understand one should not use any of the US mass surveillance machines (Facebook|Google|Twitter|LinkedIn/Microsoft|Yahoo|Apple|etc). We just needed Snowden and that we got.
Report on the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system) (2001/2098(INI)).
"The existence of a global system for intercepting private and commercial communications (the ECHELON interception system)
A. whereas the existence of a global system for intercepting communications, operating by means of cooperation proportionate to their capabilities among the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand under the UKUSA Agreement, is no longer in doubt; whereas it seems likely, in view of the evidence and the consistent pattern of statements from a very wide range of individuals and organisations, including American sources, that its name is in fact ECHELON, although this is a relatively minor detail."
Not only that; he also just ate a Banana from Colombia and generally likes Earl Grey Tea - with a tiny bit of cream, though. It's nice, you should try it some time.
To be clear, Putin isn't a great guy and Russia is very far from perfect. But they're not out to completely screw over the entire world right now like the warmongers in power in the US for the last few decades. I'm a bit more skeptical of China's motives.
But I don't think Russia's interest in doing this is for noble means like protecting Russians' privacy: most likely they want this data in country for easy collection of data on people for their own spying programs as well or other not-so-good purposes. Anybody who is concerned about internet freedom shouldn't support governments mandating where servers need to be located.
If the US had some moral authority here right now, they might be able to call them out over some of these issues. But here's the thing: the US has been the boy that cried wolf for the last year. We've been trying to demonize them and discredit them and accuse them of interfering with elections just so a bunch of butt-hurt political operatives can fulfill their own political goals (overturn Trump, discredit Trump, and find somebody else to blame other than their own corrupt party). If the US made an official protest or something and tried to tell Russia what they're doing is wrong, everybody over there would just laugh.
The Glorious Leader would probably still win his own election but his party would most certainly not. And after 2011 elections they've changed the Constitution to prolong their term and the President's term.
He also abolished governor elections for a long time when he did not have total control over the country.
Not to mention he egregiously appointed people from the Russian equivalent of Secret Service as Governors quite recently. Does not matter how unqualified you are for the job - personal loyalty is everything.
Imagine what would happen in the US if such wanton cronyism took place.
Russia has elections, and while there was some evidence of voting irregularities in the last one, the main problem is the lack of exposure to competitor politicians.
No one is making you read this. Why don't you stick to your Russian news sites? I am sure there is no propaganda and everything is exactly as they say. Ohhhh... that's right, your opening line was, "The truth is irrelevant."
His reference to "The truth is irrelevant." is not literal. He is making an ironic comparison between the real truth and the truth that is fed to us through the media.
> comes weeks after a court blocked the professional networking service for flouting local laws
> The action is the equivalent of a nation banning “Catcher in The Rye”
I don't get it. I clicked through the article to see the "justification" since LinkedIn is extremely tame. For example, imagine if LinkedIn were banned from the United States - why would that happen? Well it could happen if a court ordered it to stop impersonating its users, it didn't stop and kept impersonating then, and then the court ordered it to be shut down as punishment. Kind of far-fetched, but not that far-fetched. Everyone knows LinkedIn illegally impersonated its users.
So I was wondering what the justification would be here. So I clicked through. I didn't see the full article, but this is what I found "a court blocked the professional networking service for flouting local laws that require internet firms to store data on Russian citizens within the nation’s borders."
So question: why didn't it store data on its citizens within the nation's borders?
It doesn't seem that far-fetched of a requirement to me. Doesn't Germany have the same requirement?
I didn't Google in-depth but found this language (about Germany) "20. What rules regulate the transfer of data outside your jurisdiction?
The Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) differentiates between transfer of personal data within the EU/EEA and outside the EU/EEA."[1]
Isn't this more or less the same thing?
While I'm not defending Russia's actions (according to a Reddit user journalists are jailed, Putin's opposition opponent is in a Russian graveyard with 5 bullets in him, etc etc), but this seems like something that Linkedin could have complied on?
I'd imagine at a technical level, forcing all Russian citizen data to reside on Russian servers would mean running a federated/sharded system. It seems like a non trivial challenge. A lot of their code would need to have the concept of locality. Running an algorithm to suggest friends or rank users? Now it needs to be changed to deal with not having Russian users' data accessible in the same way. There's probably elegant solutions but why bother if you can avoid it?
Perhaps they thought they could win a legal fight. Or they wouldn't suffer enforcement actions, or public outcry will save them.
What I really mean is that I expect there's some deeper or other reason. This isn't really that big of a deal-breaker if it's only the reason cited. The technical challenges you cite certainly mean this isn't a 2-hour affair but it doesn't sound like LinkedIn would be allowed back in as soon as Russian user's data is on servers there instead of elsewhere...
I'm from Germany I can see Linked In in the appstore. Since 2000 there are Safe Harbor laws in place that regulate how data can be stored in the US etc. altough their privacy standards don't match EU and especially German standards. My government was thinking about changing those contracts during the NSA scandals but AFAIK we're stuck in negotiations atm.
By the way those negotiations are a farce since our intelligence services will hand the data right over to the NSA anyways.
The bigger question to be asked here is, with China demanding the removal of the NYT app, and Russia demanding the same for LinkedIn, how long before Trump orders Signal or Telegram to be removed?
