China Allows Didi To Resume Signing Up New Users As Tech Crackdown Eases | CNN Business
Ride-hailing giant Didi received approval to resume new user registration in China — providing more evidence that Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on tech giants might be coming to an end.
Ride-hailing giant Didi received approval to resume new user registration in China — providing more evidence that Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on tech giants might be coming to an end.
Ride-hailing giant Didi received approval to resume new user registration in China, it said Monday, providing more evidence that Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on tech giants might be coming to an end.
Ride-hailing giant Didi received approval to resume new user registration in China, it said Monday, providing more evidence that Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on tech giants might be coming to an end.Didi has been awaiting approval to resume new user registrations and downloads of its 25 banned apps in China as a key step to return to normal business since its regulatory troubles started in mid-2021.Move comes a year and a half after ride-hailing giant was targeted in a cybersecurity probe by Chinese authorities A Didi logo on a car in Nanjing, China, last year.Didi has been awaiting approval to resume new user registrations and downloads of its 25 banned apps in China as a key step to return to normal business since its regulatory troubles started in mid-2021.
The move is the latest sign that regulators are loosening the reins on the country’s beleaguered tech companies in a bid to spur economic growth.“For more than a year, our company has cooperated with the government’s cybersecurity review, seriously dealt with the security issues found in the review, and carried out a comprehensive rectification,” Didi said in a statement posted on its Weibo account.”Our company has carefully cooperated with the country’s cybersecurity review, seriously dealt with the security problems found in the review and carried out comprehensive rectifications for more than one year,” it said in a statement on Monday.With the approval of the Cybersecurity Review Office, Didi will be able to resume adding new users “immediately,” it added. Didi is a poster child for Beijing’s years-long crackdown on its tech companies.The latest move comes as Chinese policymakers are seeking to restore private sector confidence and counting on the technology industry to help spur economic activity that has been ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.Just days after its $4.A man walks past a Didi logo at the headquarters of Didi Chuxing in Beijing, China November 20, 2020.
4 billion IPO on Wall Street in June 2021, regulators banned Didi from app stores in mainland China and launched an investigation into its handling of customer data. Didi, launched in Beijing in 2012 and backed by prominent investors including Alibaba.They accused Didi of breaking privacy laws and posing cybersecurity risks. Their actions were also widely seen as punishment for the company’s decision to go public overseas instead of in China. The regulatory actions wiped tens of billions of dollars from Didi’s market capitalization and hit its domestic business. Under pressure from Beijing, Didi announced in late 2021 that it would start the process of delisting from the New York Stock Exchange and pivot to Hong Kong.
Last July, China’s cyberspace regulator fined Didi just over 8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) for violating cybersecurity and data laws. The lifting of a ban on new users comes after Beijing signaled the softening of its stance on the country’s tech industry. Earlier this month, a top official said the government’s crackdown on the fintech operations of more than a dozen internet companies was “basically” over. That remark came on the same day Chinese billionaire Jack Ma gave up control of Ant Group after the fintech giant’s shareholders agreed to restructure its business.
China’s crackdown on its biggest tech companies began in 2020 with new regulations on fintech, which forced Ma’s Ant Group to suspend its US$37 billion IPO days before its launch. Regulators then targeted a number of other tech giants, including Tencent, Meituan and Didi. But the Chinese economy is faltering because of the country’s stringent Covid restrictions, which ended in early December, and a historic property downturn. Policymakers have pledged to go all out this year to save the economy, betting on the private sector to bolster growth and boost domestic demand..
