Yahoo China Email Service Officially Closed

Yahoo China has officially terminated its email services and all user emails and related settings have been deleted.

In April 2013, Yahoo China sent an email to inform mailbox users that the company will close its email service on August 19, 2013, and all user data will be temporarily taken over by Alibaba's cloud-based service Aliyun.com. According to the email, users can register a new mailbox on Aliyun.com to keep their mail history in Yahoo mailbox until December 31, 2014.

The report published by Yahoo said that after August 19, all the emails and related account settings will be deleted and cannot be restored. However, the company said the shutting down of email services will not affect users' access to other products and services of the company.

Apart from registering on Aliyun.com, users can also choose to move their email history to the mailbox in Yahoo America, or other Chinese third-party email service providers.

If users used Yahoo mailbox as registration ID on third-party websites, they can continue to login to these websites after the termination of Yahoo email. However, it will be better if they change the registration email on these websites, in case they forget their passwords and need to reset them.

On August 11, 2005, China's Alibaba Group signed a cooperation agreement with Yahoo. Under the agreement, Yahoo exchanged USD1 billion cash and the assets of Yahoo China into about 40% ordinary shares of Alibaba Group, making it a major shareholder of Alibaba Group.

Yahoo's email service in China has also been used to hunt dissidents, as the company in the past has generously handed over information from its email servers to Chinese government authorities that has led to the arrest and detention of dissidents in China.