“Increasingly challenging business and legal environment”, Internet giant Yahoo said on Monday that it is closing its operations in China.
This development comes as US tech giant Epic Games announced it was shutting down in China due to curbs imposed on the tech sector.
Epic Games said its servers will be closed and gamers will no longer be able to access its popular survival game Fortnite from November 15.
Yahoo said users will no longer be accessible in China from November 1. “Yahoo remains committed to the rights of our users and a free and open internet,” the company said in a statement.
Earlier, Microsoft had announced it will be closing its career-linked social site LinkedIn citing regulatory concerns.
President Xi’s regime has imposed restrictions on internet companies while passing new laws clamping down on content amid customer privacy concerns and data use.
Last month China’s market regulator had said that “super-large platforms” which was defined as having over 500 million users should do more to protect data and ensure fair competition.
The regulator had declared that internet companies should not obtain data without the users’ consent as it launched cybersecurity probes across the board.
The new legislation categorised data “related to national security, the lifeline of the national economy, major aspects of the people’s livelihood, and major public interests” amid national security fears.