Opera ASA to remain a Norwegian company adhering to EU laws

Feb 16, 2016 07:05 GMT  ·  By

The recent news of the Opera buyout by a Chinese consortium has left many users wondering what's going to happen next. The company reached out to explain to users that nothing will change with the Norwegian Internet browser and services.

After we published the article about the Opera buyout, we got a lot of feedback from users, in comments and on social media. Very few of them were OK with the news, and most of them have expressed concerns about data management and various other privacy issues.

The buyer is actually a conglomerate of companies that include Qihoo 360 and Kunlun. As we all know, Chines companies don't have the best track record when it comes to privacy and other such aspects. These concerns are shared by the Opera community. Users don't know what to think of it, and many of them say that they won't use the browser if the deal goes through.

Opera to remain a Norwegian company

The Opera representatives are well aware of what the community is thinking. They are now trying to explain to users that the company will remain the same, and just the shareholders will change.

"We are a Norwegian company subject to Norwegian (EU/EEA) privacy laws. Our shareholders may change but our legal obligations in this respect will not. All data will continue to be handled in accordance with our Norwegian legal obligations nothing has changed in this respect,” said Karin GreveIsdahl, VP of Communications at Opera, for Softpedia.

It's hard for the community to accept that things might be changing with Opera, but the truth is that most likely things will remain pretty much the same. In fact, the development of the Internet browser might pick up some Steam with the increase in funding.

It's very likely that the Chinese buyers know very well that one of the strengths of Opera is its tight community, so they won't try to do anything that will damage that reputation because they would be hurting a product for which they want to pay a lot of money.