Yahoo ceases service in China due to "challenging" business and legal environment

[Shawn Knight]

Recap: Yahoo was a pioneer of the early Internet, getting its start way back in 1994. By 2000, it had become the most popular website in the world but lost significant market share to Google by the late 2000s. The company attempted to reinvent itself multiple times but hasn’t been a major influencer in the field in well over a decade. Back in May, Verizon sold Yahoo along with its spiritual sibling AOL to Apollo Global Management for $5 billion, roughly half of what the telecom originally paid for the brands back in the mid 2010s.

Yahoo has become the second US tech firm to pull out of China in as many months.

A spokesperson for the Internet pioneer told Reuters via email that 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 spokesperson added that Yahoo remains committed to the rights of its users and a free and open Internet.

Less than one month ago, Microsoft shut down the Chinese version of LinkedIn. The service had been active in China since 2014, but this past March, the country advised Microsoft to “better regulate” the content on its platform. Months went by and in the end, Microsoft elected to replace the Chinese version of LinkedIn with a new app.

InJobs is expected to launch later this year as a standalone jobs application – essentially LinkedIn without the social aspect, which the Chinese government had issues with.

Image credit Patrick Amoy

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92038-yahoo-ceases-service-china-due-challenging-business-legal.html

 

[wiyosaya]

Its about time a company decided to put principles ahead of profits. Now if only the other slacker companies, namely, crApple, Gagme, M$ would follow suit, it might be the beginning of the end of the US empowering China.

 

[Puiu]

They should have called the app 996Jobs

 

[mbrowne5061]

Its about time a company decided to put principles ahead of profits. Now if only the other slacker companies, namely, crApple, Gagme, M$ would follow suit, it might be the beginning of the end of the US empowering China.

I 100% promise it was about profit. A public company like Yahoo legally cannot put anything above profit, not unless they're willing to risk a lawsuit by their shareholders.

In all likelihood, Yahoo's new parent company took a look at the costs vs revenues coming out of China and decided that things were never turning around, that Google and Chinese-alternatives were going to keep beating them.

 

[wiyosaya]

I 100% promise it was about profit. A public company like Yahoo legally cannot put anything above profit, not unless they're willing to risk a lawsuit by their shareholders.

In all likelihood, Yahoo's new parent company took a look at the costs vs revenues coming out of China and decided that things were never turning around, that Google and Chinese-alternatives were going to keep beating them.

IMO, the result is the same. If what you say is the case, they found a way to get out of that legal liability at least for now. Maybe they will still get sued, and it would demonstrate that the shareholders don't give a about the issues of working in China if it is in the name of profit.

Edit - given this - https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/...bligated-to-maximize-profits-for-shareholders I am not sure that what you say is necessarily true. I am not a lawyer.

Edit 2 - corrected link.