UPDATE Russian telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor has made it official: LinkedIn is no longer welcome in Putin’s formerly-socialist paradise.

 

The regulator’s brief statement confirms what we knew last week , namely that LinkedIn hasn’t been able to satisfy Russia that it complies with laws requiring personal data to be stored on Russian soil.

 

LinkedIn argued that Russian authorities made their inquiries to the wrong office and that it was therefore unable to offer an explanation about its privacy arrangements.

 

LinkedIn is not big in Russia: the nation is home to about 143m souls but LinkedIn’s About page says it has over six million members in the nation. That’s poor compared to adoption rate compared to the likes of the United Kingdom (21m memnbers, 64m people) and Australian (8m members, 24m people).

 

Being blocked in Russia therefore deprives LinkedIn of an opportunity for significant growth.