Back in November last year, Russia's communications regulator ordered public access to LinkedIn's website to be blocked. Now, the country wants to remove all trace of the company's mobile app, and has ordered Apple and Google to remove it from their respective stores.
LinkedIn's Russia ban was apparently a result of its failure to adhere to new laws brought in by President Vladimir Putin back in August 2014, which requires Internet companies that store the details of Russian citizens to do so on servers within the country.
The New York Times reports that LinkedIn's apps stopped working properly once the website was blocked, but the country still wanted them completely removed from the Apple and Google Play online stores.
Apple confirmed that it was asked to remove the LinkedIn app from its Russian store about a month ago. Google, meanwhile, didn't say if it had removed the application but added that it complies with the local laws of each particular country. Both companies declined to comment further.
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn is, of course, unhappy with the decision. A spokesperson said the move "denies access to our members in Russia and the companies that use LinkedIn to grow their businesses."
The incident is the second recent case of a country asking for an app to be removed from an online store. Apple confirmed last week that it had complied with a request from the Chinese government to remove the New York Times iOS app in China.
Microsoft is facing other problems in Russia; Moscow is replacing MS Exchange Server and Outlook on 6000 of the city's computers, and Windows and Office may be the next MS products in the firing line.