Workers assemble parts of a Volvo car in Chengdu, China. The automaker is recalling about 79,000 cars and SUVs in the United States and Canada. (© Jason Lee / Reuters/REUTERS)

INTERNET

LinkedIn access to be blocked in Russia

Access to LinkedIn will be blocked in Russia after the U.S. social network failed to move personal data storage to the country, the country’s communications watchdog Roskomnadzor has said.

Conversely, services including Google, EBay, Booking.com and Uber have taken steps to move personal data storage to Russia, the watchdog has said.

“The access will be shut within days,” after a Moscow court rejected LinkedIn’s appeal Thursday, Vadim Ampelonskiy, spokesman for Roskomnadzor said. “LinkedIn failed to provide documents on moving personal databases to Russia.”

Last year, local authorities made it mandatory for foreign Internet companies to store Russian clients’ personal data to servers located within the country. LinkedIn became the first to fall foul of the ruling, with Roskomnadzor asking a Russian court to shut access to the site.

“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,” LinkedIn said in a statement.

Last year, Roskomnadzor briefly added Wikipedia to a list of locally blocked sites, but restored it after an article about cannabis was edited.

— Bloomberg News

RETAIL

Macy’s boosts outlook; clothing sales strong

Look at the headline numbers in Macy’s latest earnings report, and there isn’t much to cheer about: Revenue was down 4.2 percent, to $5.6 billion, the retailer reported Thursday. Comparable sales, a measure of sales at stores open more than a year, were down 3.3 percent.

Yet there are early hints that things might be looking up for the department store giant: Executives said there was broad-based improvement in its highly important apparel business. And the retailer bumped up its annual forecast for comparable sales, betting it will finish the year stronger than it had previously anticipated.

“We head into the holidays with some momentum of some positive trends,” Karen Hoguet, Macy’s chief financial officer, said on a conference call with investors.

That includes healthier sales in categories including denim, dresses and kids’ clothes. Macy’s registered a 3.5 percent increase on a metric known as “average unit retail,” which essentially means that it was making more sales without resorting to discounting. This typically is an indication that a retailer did a better job of lining its shelves with merchandise that people wanted to buy, and it can be a sign that the store did a better job of managing inventory.

— Sarah Halzack

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— From news services

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