Yahoo pulls out of China, citing ''challenging'' environment
Hong Kong, Nov 3: Yahoo Inc. said Tuesday it has pulled out of China, citing an increasingly challenging operating environment.
The withdrawal was largely symbolic, as many of the company's services were already blocked by China's digital censorship. But recent government moves to expand its control over tech companies generally, including its domestic giants, may have tipped the scales for Yahoo.
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. It said it remains committed to the rights of our users and a free and open internet.
The company's move comes as the American and Chinese governments feud over technology and trade. The U.S. has put restrictions on telecom giant Huawei and other Chinese tech companies, alleging that they have ties with China's government, military or both. China says the U.S. is unfairly suppressing competition and trying to block China's technological rise.
Yahoo is the latest foreign tech company to exit China. Google gave up several years ago, and Microsoft's professional networking platform LinkedIn said last month it would shutter its Chinese site, replacing it with a jobs board instead. The departures illustrate the choices internet companies face in a huge potential market, but one where the government requires them to censor content and keywords deemed politically sensitive or inappropriate.
In their place, Chinese companies have filled the void, creating an alternative internet with its own digital giants. The Baidu search engine has largely replaced Yahoo and Google in China, and WeChat and Weibo are the leading social media platforms.
Yahoo's departure coincided with the implementation of China's Personal Information Protection Law, which limits what information companies can gather and sets standards for how it must be stored.
Chinese laws also stipulate that companies operating in the country must hand over data if requested by authorities, making it difficult for Western firms to operate in China as they may also face pressure back home over giving in to China's demands.
Yahoo was harshly criticized by lawmakers in the U.S. in 2007 after it handed over data on two Chinese dissidents to Beijing, eventually leading to their imprisonment.
Yahoo had previously downsized its operations in China, dropping a music and email service in the early 2010s and shuttering its Beijing office in 2015. Anyone who tried to access Engadget China, a tech news site that it had continued to operate, was greeted Tuesday with a popup saying the site would no longer publish content.
China has also blocked most international social media sites and search engines, such as Facebook and Google. Some users in China circumvent the block by using a virtual private network (VPN) that masks who you are and where you are logging in from.
Verizon Communications Inc. acquired Yahoo in 2017 and merged it with AOL, but later sold the entity off to private equity firm Apollo Global Management in a 5 billion deal. Apollo announced in September that its acquisition of Yahoo was complete.
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Congress protests at Utkal Bhavan over killing of Bengali migrant worker in Odisha
Kolkata (PTI): The Congress on Tuesday staged a protest in front of Utkal Bhavan here against the killing of a migrant worker from Murshidabad district in Odisha, alleging a growing pattern of violence against Bengali-speaking workers across several states.
The demonstration was led by Congress leader Manoj Chakraborty, who said the latest incident in Odisha, where a young man from Murshidabad was allegedly beaten to death, reflected an alarming trend of harassment and attacks on Bengali migrant workers.
Chakraborty claimed that workers from West Bengal were being targeted and "tortured" in states such as Odisha, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, often merely for speaking the Bengali language.
"The workers are forced to leave their homes because there is no livelihood, no jobs, in their areas. When they go outside the state to earn a living, they are attacked for their identity," Chakraborty told reporters during the protest.
Demanding immediate government intervention, the Congress leader said the safety of migrant workers must be ensured through institutional measures. He urged the government to issue official identity cards to all migrant workers at the earliest.
"These identity cards should clearly mention the worker's home district, the local police station and the contact number of a police officer so that they can seek immediate help while working outside the state," he said.
The Congress leader said that such incidents would continue unless concrete steps were taken to protect migrant workers.
A 30-year-old migrant worker from West Bengal was allegedly killed in Odisha's Sambalpur district following an altercation over a bidi recently, police said.
Juel Sheikh was working, along with a few others from West Bengal, in the construction of a building in Shanti Nagar in the Ainthapalli police station area.
They were returning from work when a group of six men stopped them and asked for a bidi. An altercation broke out, leading to a scuffle between the two sides, police said.
Juel was thrashed severely, and he died while undergoing treatment at the Sambalpur hospital. The six accused persons have been arrested by the police.
West Bengal's ruling TMC claimed that Juel was beaten to death over suspicion that he was an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant.
