Yahoo! Japan was a joint partnership of Yahoo! and SoftBank. From what I could tell while working at Yahoo!, Yahoo Japan was able to use whatever software they wanted from Y!, but whatever they developed wasn't accessibly by the rest of Y!
So, they had their own installation of geocities, and didn't need to take it down. Yahoo auctions is also big in Japan, but was killed everywhere else. (Edit: change was to is)
So, they had their own installation of geocities, and didn't need to take it down. Yahoo auctions is also big in Japan, but was killed everywhere else. (Edit: change was to is)