Yahoo, the dot-com pioneer that’s now part of Apollo Global Management’s media empire, is getting out of China because of the mounting hurdles to doing business in the country.
“In recognition of the increasingly challenging business and legal environment in China, Yahoo’s suite of services will no longer be accessible from mainland China as of 1 November,” the company said in a statement. “Yahoo remains committed to the rights of our users and a free and open Internet. We thank our users for their support.”
Yahoo follows LinkedIn, the professional-networking site owned by Microsoft, in packing out of China. LinkedIn left China last month and was the last major US social media provider to leave.
LinkedIn entered China in 2014, but said the decision to leave now is because of “a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China”.
Yahoo’s holding company, Apollo agreed to buy most of Yahoo earlier this year as part of its acquisition of Verizon Media for US$5 billion. Verizon Communications, the US wireless giant, had assembled that business out of longstanding Internet brands, including Yahoo and AOL. Yahoo was once a dominant provider of online services, with the most popular website, as well as search and e-mail offerings.
Meanwhile, industry watcher believe the challenging facing US tech companies in main land China is a retaliation to how US is treating Chinese companies in the US, particular Huawei, ZTE, WeChat, PAX Technology and others.
The US high-handedness toward Chinese tech giants started in the Donald Trump era, and has continued under Joe Biden.
