Yahoo leave China. The company decided to stop providing its services in China on November 1st. According to Yahoo, this choice is linked to an “increasingly difficult operational and legal environment”. This is the second American group linked to the world of the web that abandons or reduces its activities in China in a few weeks. Last October, in fact, Microsoft announced the closure of the Chinese version of LinkedIn, replaced by a job networking platform.
Yahoo says goodbye to China
Yahoo’s choice represents the conclusion of a pactivity reduction program in China already started in the past. In fact, in 2015, Yahoo closed its offices in Beijing. Until the last few weeks, Yahoo’s services were accessible from China exclusively using a VPN to circumvent the censorship wanted by local authorities. Yahoo’s activities on the Chinese market have now definitively ceased.
Will other companies follow suit?
In the future, other Western companies may choose to reduce their presence in Cinto. Censorship and commercial and legal restrictions are increasingly stringent and Yahoo’s example could be taken up by other international realities. We’ll see if after Microsoft’s choice to downsize LinkedIn (more details in the news linked below) and Yahoo’s others will follow suit. Further updates may come soon.