Yahoo has shut down its services in mainland China, becoming the second Western tech giant to pull the plug on China over the past month. The company stopped providing content for mainland Chinese users as of Nov. 1, according to a statement from its official website. “Products and services remain unaffected in all other global locations,” it said. Yahoo made the decision “[i]n recognition of the increasingly challenging business and legal environment in China,” a company spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email on Tuesday, adding that “Yahoo remains committed to the rights of our users and a free and open internet.” The withdrawal followed that of Microsoft’s social networking platform LinkedIn, which exited the Chinese market just a little over two weeks ago, citing “a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China.” The timing of Yahoo’s pullout also coincided with Beijing’s implementation of a data …