Yahoo leaves China after new consumer data law takes effect

Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Tech company Yahoo announced on Tuesday that it's pulling its operations in China due to legal and operational "challenges" in the Asian country.

The company said it's leaving China after two decades of doing business there, citing an "increasingly challenging business and legal environment."

Yahoo said its services were no longer available in mainland China on Monday.

Chinese law places varying restrictions on businesses that operate in the country, often subjecting them to censorship over content that's deemed too critical of the government.

Access to features like email and news have disappeared from Yahoo's China site since 2013. The company closed its Beijing office two years later.

Yahoo's pullout coincides with a new Chinese consumer protection law that restricts what kind of information that tech companies can gather from users and how it must be stored. The law took effect on Monday.