According to Jillian York on Huffington Post, LinkedIn users in Syria had their accounts deleted, then restored, based on what Kay Luo, spokesman for the company, called “human error” which “led to over compliance with respect to export controls.”

The deletion was based on United States sanctions against Syria. (LinkedIn is a U.S. company.) Other countries effected by similar sanctions, and which have been denied access to LinkedIn, include Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Sudan.

The sanctions against Syria in particular apply to exports and reexports, including software. Specifically, U.S. companies are prohibited from providing “operation” technology and software, “sales” technology, and software updates.

Since the sanctions were enacted, a number of Web-based companies have had to carefully examine their terms of service and restrict users from accessing certain areas of sites. Google, for example, allows Syrian users to access Gmail and iGoogle, but not Google Gears or Gmail video chat. Facebook, though filtered by Syrian ISPs, offers Syria as a location option, and allows users to access its services. Only companies such as Amazon.com, which sells books and other products by mail, and GoDaddy.com, which offers domain names, have been forced to prohibit Syrian use altogether.

I have asked for clarification from Ms. Luo via Twitter.