By Tenzin Dharpo
DHARAMSHALA, Nov. 3: Weeks after prominent technology company Microsoft’s professional networking platform LinkedIn pulled out of China, Yahoo on Tuesday announced it will close operations in the country citing “increasingly challenging business and legal environment.”
“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 November 1,” the company said in a statement, adding that it “remains committed to the rights of our users and a free and open internet.”
China’s draconian laws for internet censorship mandate companies operate under an airtight platform requiring censorship of any topics or issues that are deemed sensitive by the party. Companies are also required to hand over user information whenever demanded, posing confidentiality and privacy concerns for users.
Many social media platforms like Facebook and search engines like Google are banned in China although users can access them through bypassing state firewalls using virtual private network (VPN). China has instead launched substitutes for the 1 billion internet users in the country.
Yahoo had earlier downsized its operations in China, and in 2015 closed its Beijing office. The US-based company’s withdrawal, many say, is largely symbolic as its services in China, including its web portal, have already been blocked.
Despite the lure of huge market in China, companies pulling out or not aggressively pursuing Chinese market is a welcome development in light of choke-hold laws in China says Tenzin Dalha, a research fellow specialising in Chinese policy on Internet censorship and filtering and Chinese Cyber Security policy at Tibet Policy Institute, a think tank under the Central Tibetan Administration.
“Its a wise decision at the right time by the technology firms to downsize operations or pull out completely from China because of the strict data privacy law. Data protection is a subset of privacy. The CCP with the intent to tighten its grip over cyber space has aggressively exercised suppression of freedom of expression, data mining, censorship of information. It is not the way forward for a country trying to step into prominence in the global limelight and to portray itself as a world leader,” Dalha told Phayul.
