Yahoo! has shut down its news websites in India due to the new foreign direct investment (FDI) rules. This includes Yahoo News, Yahoo Cricket, Finance, Entertainment, and MAKERS India.
The new FDI rules limit foreign ownership of media companies that operate and publish digital content in India.
This, however, will not affect users’ e-mail, and search experiences in India.
“As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account, Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership,” a notice on the Yahoo website said.
“We did not come to this decision lightly. However, we have been impacted by changes to regulatory laws in India that now limit the foreign ownership of media companies that operate and publish digital content in India. Yahoo has had a long association with India and we’re really proud of the premium, local content we have provided our users here for the last 20 years,” it said.
It added that given that Yahoo Cricket has a ‘news’ component, “it was impacted under the new FDI regulations that limit foreign ownership of media companies that operate and publish digital content in India in the ‘News and Current Affairs’ space”.
Thanking all its users in India for the “support and trust” over the past two decades, it noted that it remains “open to opportunities that connect us to users here”.
