London, Apr. 21 (ANI): Yahoo's Chinese arm will shut down its email service on August 19 this year - a move that will leave it with just its web portal business.
Users of the service were told they must register with AliCloud, a unit of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, to prevent emails and other information from being deleted when Yahoo's mail service stops, reports Sky News.
China Yahoo! has been operated by Alibaba since 2005.
The US internet giant has come under criticism in the past over its business in China. In 2007, executives apologised after providing evidence that was subsequently used by the Chinese authorities used to convict government critics.
The company said it was legally obliged to divulge information about its users to the Chinese government - but said it was unaware it would be used to convict dissidents.
Alibaba public relations official Zhang Jianhua said the end of the mail service would affect millions of users, although he did not have a more precise figure.
A China Yahoo! statement said they would offer several options to its users to make the transition as smooth as possible, adding that China Yahoo! users will have four months time to migrate their accounts.
It said the migration process had already begun.
Users of China's Twitter-like microblogs expressed anger at the news. (ANI)
|
|
Comments:
