Yahoo shuts down news websites in India - Here's what the company said

According to the new Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) rules of India which were announced in May 2021, foreign funding that exceeds more than 26 percent in digital news media outlets is prohibited. As a result, Verizon Media, which owns Yahoo and its news websites in India, was forced to shut down.

Yahoo Cricket, Yahoo Finance, News, Entertainment, and other services in India will be taken down in the coming days. However, Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Search in India will remain unaffected.

Yahoo notified through their official website that “Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content” as of August 26, 2021.  

The company further said that Yahoo Account, Mail and Search operations won’t be affected in any way and will continue operations as usual.

Thanking its audience for the support and readership, Yahoo said that the development will not affect Yahoo Mail users in any way and doesn’t impact “products Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Search”. It added that the company will continue to serve Indian users “as before, without any change.”

Changes in Indian regulatory frameworks that restrict overseas investment of media organisations has impacted Yahoo India.

For the past 20 years, the company has been "proud of the premium, local content" it has delivered to its users in this city, according to the corporation. Yahoo was purchased in 2017 by Verizon Communications Inc.

April Boyd, Verizon Media's chief of global public policy, announced that Yahoo's news and current affairs content activities in India will be terminated due to operational and financial difficulties in transforming the media company within the required timeline, as well as the lack of necessary government permits to continue.

Yahoo thanked all of its Indian users for their "support and trust" over the years, and stated that it is "open to options” that link it to users in the country.