The move comes two days after the government said it was investigating cybersecurity issues at the ride-hailing giant, which made its Wall Street debut this past week.
China’s government ordered the country’s leading ride-hailing platform, Didi, removed from app stores for “serious” problems related to the collection and use of customer data, the latest blow by Beijing to the company, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange just this past week. In its brief late-evening announcement on Sunday, China’s internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, did not explain what problems it had found, only that its decision had been based on information that was reported to it, then tested and verified. The regulator ordered Didi to correct the problems and to “earnestly safeguard and expand the security of personal user data.” On Friday, the same regulator issued another surprise evening announcement, saying that new user sign-ups on Didi would be suspended while the authorities conducted a “cybersecurity review.” The agency did not say what had prompted the review. That announcement, made just days into Didi’s life as a publicly traded business on Wall Street, sent the company’s share price falling 5 percent on Friday.
