【Yoo Jung】

Russia's communications regulator has started to block LinkedIn in the country after a court ruling found the firm guilty of violating data laws.

Roskomnadzor issued a short statement that cited the August decision of the Moscow District Court to block LinkedIn to protect Russian internet users' data. The Yoo Jungruling was upheld by Moscow city court on Nov. 10.

In a statement to Mashable, LinkedIn confirmed the block:

“LinkedIn’s vision is to create economic opportunity for the entire global workforce. We are starting to hear from members in Russia that they can no longer access LinkedIn," a spokesperson said.

"Roskomnadzor's action to block LinkedIn denies access to the millions of members we have in Russia and the companies that use LinkedIn to grow their businesses. We remain interested in a meeting with Roskomnadzor to discuss their data localization request.”

LinkedIn, which is currently being acquired by Microsoft and has more than 6 million registered users in Russia, attempted a last-minute meeting with Russian regulators last Friday to hold off the ban, according to Techcrunch.

The watchdog statement means ISPs in Russia will be forced to comply with the block within one day or face heavy fines.

A 2015 Russian law requires all websites to store personal data of Russian citizens on Russian servers -- a difficult requirement to uphold for most foreign companies and social networks. LinkedIn has so far refused to do so.

Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened a few weeks ago to rid all government offices and state-controlled companies of Microsoft software.

(Editor: {typename type="name"/})