China bans ridesharing app Didi from app stores for violations

China Sunday ordered app stores to remove ride-sharing giant Didi Chuxing from their lists, citing serious violations of laws regarding the collection and use of users’ personal data.

The announcement was made by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s cyberspace regulator, who friday announced that she was leading a cybersecurity review company and asked them to stop registering new users. In Sunday’s announcement, the regulator also ordered Didi to follow legal requirements and rectify existing problems to protect the security of users’ personal information, according to a Google translation of the statement on the government website.

Didi responded to the ruling on her Weibo Account, essentially the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, Sunday and said he would work to rectify issues identified by regulator, translation says. He said that users, including passengers and drivers, who had already downloaded the Didi app would be able to use it normally during this process.

“Didi is resolutely implementing the relevant requirements of the relevant state departments and suspended the registration of new users on July 3, and the Didi Travel app will be removed from the shelves for rectification in strict accordance with the requirements of the relevant departments.” , the company said. mentionned.

Friday, in a statement to the Wall Street newspaper, Didi said he would cooperate fully with the government’s cybersecurity review and conduct a “comprehensive cybersecurity risk review.” It is committed to continuously improving its cybersecurity systems and technological capabilities.

China’s Cyberspace Administration declared his opinion de Didi aimed to prevent national data security risks.

However, China may have other reasons to crack down on Didi. Bloomberg Reports as the country has strived to reign over the influence of its largest internet companies. This involves focusing on owning and processing the information that online companies, such as Alibaba and Tencent, collect from hundreds of millions of users on a daily basis.

The country’s review and deregistration comes days after the company went public at $ 4.4 billion, the largest initial public offering in the United States for a Chinese company since Alibaba’s IPO in $ 25 billion in 2014.