Microsoft is shutting down its main LinkedIn service in China later this year after internet rules were tightened by Beijing, the latest American tech giant to lessen its ties to the country.
The company said in a blog post Thursday it has faced a "significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China.”
Download our local news and weather app for Apple or Android — and sign up for alerts. LinkedIn will replace its localized platform in China with a new app called InJobs that has some of LinkedIn's career-networking features but “will not include a social feed or the ability to share posts or articles.”
LinkedIn in March said it would pause new member sign-ups on LinkedIn China because of unspecified regulatory issues. China’s internet watchdog in May said it had found LinkedIn as well as Microsoft’s Bing search engine and about 100 other apps were engaged in improper collection and use of data and ordered them to fix the problem.
Several scholars this year also reported getting warning letters from LinkedIn that they were sharing “prohibited content” that would not be made viewable in China but could still be seen by LinkedIn users elsewhere.