Since the beginning of December and after a long legal battle between the LinkedIn company, now in the hands of Microsoft, and the Russian government, the company has seen its service completely stopped working across the country. Russia, like China, is making a move in recent years and they are establishing a series of requirements so that any service, especially American, that wants to offer its service in the country, host all the data of its citizens on servers located in the country. It is clear, although they do not say it literally, that they want to have the information as close as possible to be able to access it without raising much suspicion.
A month after blocking the LinkedIn service in Russia, the Russian government has requested again, it is not the first time it has done so in the last month, the removal of the LinkedIn app from the Apple app storeAn application that since the beginning of December, the date on which the service is no longer available, has stopped working through normal channels, but it is likely, it has not been confirmed, that it can be accessed through VPN services. Google, like Apple, has also received the same request, for the application to also be withdrawn from its Android application store.
Some days ago Apple agreed to the request of the Chinese government, with whom relations in recent years are no longer rosy, to withdraw the application of The New York Times newspaper, due to the violation of local regulations. The website of this newspaper has been blocked since 2012, but it seems that even so the application available in the Chinese App Store can bypass these limitations also making use of VPN services, since otherwise it does not make any sense that the government wants to eliminate it from the country's App Store.
What a reading of the situation ... "because Russia wants to have the data very close to be able to access them ..." in short ... it could be true, but I would not mind if my government did the same, since someone accesses my data, almost better stay home, right? The same is protectionism, to prevent companies in the US from having the data of your citizens.
Russian users will end up turning to unofficial app stores, with the dangers that this entails. Being one of the most important social networks and the state of confrontation between Russia and the US, it is logical that the Russian Government continues to carry out actions like this.