 |
| Yahoo Japan is not available in Europe |
Yahoo Japan has announced that most of its online services will not be able to access them in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom from April 6.
The company's email, credit card, and e-book services were still available, but everything else became unavailable.
Yahoo Japan is a Japanese Internet company originally founded in 1996 as a joint venture between the American Internet company Yahoo and the Japanese company SoftBank Corporation.
The specific reason appears to be the cost of complying with European regulations, which may include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The company said in a statement that it was finding it difficult to provide continuous service to customers in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom.
He even told Japan's IT Media magazine that he might not be able to pay to comply with those laws.
Yahoo Japan is a completely separate entity, completely different from the former US web giant, now owned by private equity firm Apollo.
Yahoo Japan is still very popular as a web portal and search engine in Japan. There are many other services in Japan including online auctions, e-commerce, weather and map apps.
Yahoo Japan's decision to withdraw from Europe entirely comes as Yahoo Japan ramps up efforts to expand outside its home market.
Last year, SoftBank-owned Yahoo Japan Z Holdings merged with the dominant Japanese chat app to create a new tech giant with global ambitions.
Line CEO Takeshi Idzawa and now co-CEO of Z Holdings, and Kentaro Kwabe, CEO of Yahoo Japan, said at the time that the new company wanted to launch a global smartphone app.
Yahoo also pulls out of China due to environmental problems
Yahoo Japan has made it clear that its user base in Europe is not large enough to justify the cost of complying with EU regulations.
Its services are mostly available in Japanese only. Therefore, their effect is limited. However, it should be noted that a company with such a large presence in an important market does not feel comfortable doing business in Europe.
The US company also shut down its services in China after entering the country in 1998. As of November 1, due to the increasingly difficult business and legal environment in China, our services in China will no longer be available, he said in a statement.
"The company remains committed to protecting user rights and a free and open Internet," he added. We thank our users for their support.
As of November 1, 2021, the company will stop serving content to users in China. It redirects Yahoo Mail and AOL users to other links.
Many business functions in China have disappeared since 2013, including email and messaging. In 2015, the company closed its Beijing office, and cut nearly 300 jobs.