China Suspends Tencent App Activities In The Country

China has suspended Tencent Holdings, barring the company from updating any of its current apps or launching new ones pending administrative guidance from the Chinese government.

According to the South China Morning Post, the order came from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which sees Chinese App Stores ordered to take action against Tencent.

“We are continuously working to enhance user protection features within our apps, and also have regular cooperation with relevant government agencies to ensure regulatory compliance. Our apps remain functional and available for download,” Tencent said in its statement.

That being said, senior analyst Daniel Ahmad has reassured users that it would only apply to apps operating within China, and that games published overseas by Tencent would not be affected.

Similarly even if you were in mainland China, this isn’t as if to say that the apps themselves are gone- they can still be downloaded, it’s just that Tencent themselves cannot make anymore changes to them until they get the Government’s green light.

There hasn’t been any confirmation of what exactly brought on the “administrative guidance” of the Chinese government, though it seems to fit in line with China’s continued clampdown and increase in regulations within the country.

“China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has been running a campaign since last year, which is aimed at ensuring apps follow cybersecurity and data privacy laws, in regard to user data collection”, Daniel says. “It’s issued rectification requests to many apps before”.

“How it’s worked in the past is that individual apps will be notified and asked to make changes”, he continues. “This is the first time (I’m aware of) where every app from a single company is being targeted. Which is a notable step up from how it usually works”.

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