LNKD Linkedin Corp. Class A

MOSCOW—A Moscow court upheld a decision to ban the professional social network LinkedIn Corp. in Russia on Thursday, according to news agencies, in a landmark ruling enforcing a personal data law.

LinkedIn is the first foreign company to publicly clash with Russia's communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, over the law, which requires foreign and local companies to store personal data of Russian users within the country's borders from Sept. 2015.

In early August, a lower court ruled in favor of Roskomnadzor, saying that LinkedIn didn't comply with Russian law on two counts: by not storing information about Russians on servers inside the country, and by processing information about third parties who aren't registered on the site and haven't signed the company's user agreement.

In a statement Thursday Linkedin said: "The Russian court's decision has the potential to deny access to LinkedIn for 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."

Russia has repeatedly put off a showdown with a handful of foreign technology companies, including Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc., who have resisted installing data centers on Russian soil under the law.

Earlier in the week, Roskomnadzor's head Alexander Zharov said that the agency wasn't singling out the U.S.-based company.

"We are planning to make [the dispute with LinkedIn] an absolutely ordinary case," he said. "Since LinkedIn has ignored our letters when we were inviting them to discuss the issue of personal data localization; and after a few letters [we] were forced to go to court," Mr. Zharov added.

Since the law came into effect last year, Roskomnadzor has checked 1,500 companies to ensure they abide by the data localization law.

"I'm not going to name the names of the companies since this is to a large extent commercial information but major internet giants are in the process of complying with the law," Mr. Zharov also said, indicating that it may be time for major foreign companies to yield to the regulator's pressure.

"It looks like this is truly a signal for all other companies that Roskomnadzor is quite determined [to make companies comply with the data localization law," said Evgeny Oreshin, a lawyer for Goltsblat BLP, on Tuesday.

Write to Olga Razumovskaya at olga.razumovskaya@wsj.com and Laura Mills at Laura.Mills@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 10, 2016 10:55 ET (15:55 GMT)

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