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With China’s tightening of regulatory measures, Yahoo has become the latest American technology company to announce its withdrawal from mainland China.
The company stated that the reason for this decision is that China is an “increasingly difficult business and legal environment.”
Yahoo users in China will now receive a message stating that their website is no longer able to log in.
The company said that Yahoo’s products and services will not be affected in other parts of the world.
The company statement said: “Yahoo is still committed to safeguarding our user rights and a free and open Internet. I would like to express our gratitude to our users for their support.”
Yahoo’s withdrawal comes after Microsoft announced last month that its commercial social platform LinkedIn (LindedIn) would withdraw from China. Microsoft blamed the withdrawal of LinkedIn on “a much more difficult operating environment and a higher degree of compliance.”
Suppress technology companies
China is carrying out a crackdown on large technology companies-whether it is American or local companies.
In recent years, a series of new laws have been passed, which together led to the formation of a “difficult” market referred to by Yahoo and other companies.
The “Personal Information Protection Law” that came into effect on November 1 is one of them.
As a Chinese law for data protection, it introduces a series of regulations on how data is collected and stored, including fines that can be as high as 5% of a company’s annual turnover.
Foreign entities that process user information through cookies and web service profiles must set up offices or arrange representatives in mainland China and be responsible for the implementation of relevant laws.
To a certain extent, it is similar to the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, China’s political environment is very different from that of many Western countries, but has strict censorship requirements.
Approaching Chinese Social Media: From “Country of Copycats” to Innovation Engine
Some Western technology companies have been criticized for having connections with China or storing user data in China.
The widespread suppression of technology companies is part of the Chinese government’s five-year plan to regulate the economy, and it even hurts local Chinese companies.
The total ban on cryptocurrencies has taken a big hit to Bitcoin, and Alibaba paid a record $2.8 billion (£2 billion) in fines earlier this year.
The large-scale suppression has also extended to the game field-officials likened it to digital drugs, and enacted regulations to impose strict restrictions on children’s playing online games.
Yahoo Overview
Yahoo, a search engine in the early days of the Internet, was once a major rival of Google, but its assets have fallen in the last two decades.
Today, it still provides portal services—a website that integrates news, email, and search functions, but it has been surpassed by Google and updated giant companies such as Facebook and Twitter.
It also owns a certain number of media brands, such as technology news sites Engadget and TechCrunch, which are no longer available in mainland China.
Yahoo has also changed hands several times. The most recent time was in May when Verizon, a US telecom company, resold it and AOL to a private equity investment company for $5 billion.