A local court in Moscow has ruled that LinkedIn does not comply with Russian data protection rules. The ruling blocked the company's operation in Russia starting Thursday. However, LinkedIn can file an appeal against the court's decision.

The Russian legislature passed a new set of rules regarding data use in 2015. The law requires companies to store the personal data of its Russian users on severs located inside the country.

"LinkedIn failed to provide documents on moving personal databases to Russia," Russian communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said.

Roskomnadzor added that several companies such as Ebay, Uber, Booking.com and Google have already started working towards complying with the directives. However, Facebook and Twitter have not taken any step to meet the legal requirement.

LinkedIn is believed to have nearly 2.6 million users in Russia. "We remain interested in a meeting with Roskomnadzor to discuss their data localization request," the networking company said. Russia has a history of clamping down on foreign media to protect its sovereign interest.

It is not clear why Russia chose to target LinkedIn as there are several other technology companies which do not comply with Russian rules for storing personal data. It is likely that the Russian government wants to use LinkedIn to send a message to other companies.

Facebook is believed to have rejected all five requests made by the Russian government last year for access to particular users' data. Twitter is also said to have rejected four such requests. Recently, other countries such as Germany have taken steps to ensure that their citizens' data is stored on local servers.