Posted on 09/06/2005 5:47:06 PM PDT by wagglebee
A French media watchdog said Tuesday that information provided by Internet powerhouse Yahoo Inc. helped Chinese authorities convict and jail a writer who had penned an e-mail about press restrictions.
The harsh criticism from Reporters Without Borders marks the latest instance in which a prominent high-tech company has faced accusations of cooperating with Chinese authorities to gain favor in a country that's expected to become an Internet gold mine. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo and two of its biggest rivals, Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, previously have come under attack for censoring online news sites and Web logs, or blogs, that include content that China's communist government wants to suppress.
Reporters Without Borders ridiculed Yahoo for becoming even cozier with the Chinese government by becoming a police informant in a case that led to the recent conviction of Chinese journalist Shi Tao.
"Does the fact that this corporation operates under Chinese law free it from all ethical considerations?" Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. "How far will it go to please Beijing?"
Contacted Tuesday, a Yahoo spokeswoman had no immediate comment because company officials were still reviewing Reporters Without Borders' statement.
Reporters Without Borders said court papers showed that Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. gave Chinese investigators information that helped them trace a personal Yahoo e-mail allegedly containing state secrets to Tao's computer. Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. is part of Yahoo's global network.
Shi, a former journalist for the financial publication Contemporary Business News, was sentenced in April to 10 years in prison for illegally providing state secrets to foreigners. Reporters Without Borders described Shi as a "good journalist who has paid dearly for trying to get the news out."
His conviction stemmed from an e-mail he sent containing his notes on a government circular that spelled out restrictions on the media.
"This probably would not have been possible without the cooperation of Yahoo," said Lucie Morillon, a Washington, D.C.-based spokeswoman for Reporters Without Borders.
Shi's arrest in November at his home in the northwestern province of Shanxi prompted appeals for his release by activists, including the international writers group PEN.
A number of Chinese journalists have faced similar charges of violating vague security laws as communist leaders struggle to maintain control of information in the burgeoning Internet era.
Yahoo and its major rivals have been expanding their presence in China in hopes of reaching more of the country's population as the Internet becomes more ingrained in their daily lives.
Just last month, Yahoo paid $1 billion for a 40 percent stake in China's biggest online commerce firm, Alibaba.com.
Meanwhile, Google and Microsoft are locked in a bitter legal battle over a former Microsoft engineer who Google hired in July to oversee the opening of a research center in China
Yahoo should be held accountable for this!
I use their free email, use their free games but have stopped paying for anything they sponser!
"Yahoo and two of its biggest rivals, Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, previously have come under attack for censoring online news sites and Web logs, or blogs, that include content that China's communist government wants to suppress."
Cass Sunstein's well received book, Republic.com, suggests ways to "save" democracy from narrow-minded thinking -- something that afflicts those who read too much conservative views and not enough leftist views.
"Republic.Com raises important and troubling questions about the effects of the Internet on a democratic society," said the NY Times.
"He fears that the Internet is contributing to a fragmentation of public discourse that is undermining democracy. For democracy to work, Sunstein says, it's important that citizens be exposed to many alternative viewpoints, occasionally encountering information that is unexpected or even jarring," said Peter Coy, BusinessWeek
In a radio interview he said that government should force people to be exposed to many alternative viewpoints.
When asked it that meant liberals should be forced to be exposed to conservative views he had to think a few seconds then responded that he supposed so. He'd never considered that he said. If I remember correctly.
Kind of ironic ain't it. The same forces can save both Communism and democracy. Sure.
Yahoo.com, .org, and dot-whatever have just been added to my hosts file. I will in no way access their site(s) again.
They are still gripped with the ever-elusive dream(fantasy) of "billion-men" market still where they make truckload after truckload of money. In the process, they lost their perspective. On the other hand, a Chinese guy is a principal owner of Yahoo(at least, he used to,) so Yahoo is more favorably biased toward China than its rivals.
This is astonishingly disgraceful! We should bombard Yahoo with letters of protest.
Hey, GE--you use Yahoo Search exclusively, don't you?
Hey, GE--you use Yahoo Search exclusively, don't you?
I forgot...pings, please.
Yahoo and Google both use linux because Linus Torvald's father was a communist. That is also why Red Flag is just a renamed version of Red Hat.
Where does howard dean stand on linux?
No, I don't use anything exclusively.
Further proof you're always wrong.
He's a real big supporter of it, just like most major liberals and socialists. He's even contributed to open source software, and refers to his own politics as "open source politics". His campaign manager even worked on it full time before coming to the Dean campaign. Don't act like you didn't know.
No company can operate in a nation and refuse to follow the laws of that nation.
Any company that says the law is what the company says it is .. not what the nation in which they are operating says it is, can not expect to long survive. If Chinese law needs changing then it will have to be the Chinese government or some other goverment that changes it. Companies have no right to disobey any nations laws.
If Yahoo decided to only obey American laws with which they agree would you support them in that effort? If Yahoo decided that man-boy love was ok, should they be able to protect the identity of men who use Yahoo to attract young boys for sexual purposes?
If Yahoo can allow someone to break Chinese law then they certainly should be able to allow Americans to break American law.
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