Russia [BBC profile] will block LinkedIn [corporate website] within the country after a court ruling Thursday. The local court found [NYT report] that the company had breached the country’s data protection rules. This comes during a time of increased tension for American tech companies operating within the country. Russia has imposed this ban after lawmakers passed a new rule [ComputerWeekly report] last year that required any personal digital data on Russian citizens to be stored within the country. The decision by the Moscow court upheld and previous ruling against LinkedIn. The ban on the company could take effect as early as Monday, with Internet service providers blocking access to LinkedIn in Russia.

Russia has faced off against numerous American Tech companies in the past. In March a Moscow arbitration court rejected an appeal by Google [JURIST report], upholding a ruling that the company broke anti-monopoly laws by abusing its dominant position within the cellular application industry. In July 2015 the Russian parliament voted in favor [JURIST report] of a bill that forced online search engine’s to remove search results about a person at that person’s request. In April 2014 the Russian parliament approved a set of bills [JURIST report] that applied new restrictions on the internet and blogging which many feared was an attempt at the government to regulate and silence any opposition.