TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese messaging app Line, owned by SoftBank’s Z Holdings Corp, allowed Chinese engineers at an affiliate firm in Shanghai to access data on Japanese users without consent, the Asahi newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Z Holdings, formerly Yahoo Japan, announced a merger with Line last year, which was delayed from October to this month because of regulatory delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The merger is part of a strategy to better compete with internet rivals in Japan and overseas.
(Reporting by Takashi Umekawa and Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Christopher Cushing)
