Yahoo is apparently trying to spin their way out of this controversy: Report Alleges Semel's Yahoo Helped China Again.
A free press advocacy group has published a verdict from Chinese authorities that may implicate Yahoo! as having provided evidence for the Communist state to prosecute one of its users for subversion.
(snip)
Osako also stressed that any sort of disclosure would not have been made by Yahoo! Hong Kong. "Yahoo! Hong Kong has never provided user information to the [Chinese] government," she said. "That's a very important fact. What was named in the verdict is an entity called Yahoo! Holdings which is different to Yahoo! Hong Kong." When asked if it were possible that Jiang LiJun's information had been provided by Yahoo! China, the spokeswoman replied, "Yes".
She added: "Let us make clear that we condemn punishment of any activity internationally recognized as free expression, whether that punishment takes place in China or anywhere else in the world."
Disgusting. This level of back-peddling and blame-shifting reminds me of the way IBM set itself up to avoid apparent collusion with Nazi Germany during World War II (see IBM and the Holocaust ). Instead of IBM in the U.S., it was Dehomag, a German subsidiary of theirs, who sold the Nazis the Hollerith machine that ensured they could track, categorize, and execute Jews with exacting precision. The same way in which Thomas J. Watson saw the Nazis as lucrative business partners, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and a whole host of businesses see China as a cash cow. These businesses don't let pesky problems like extreme oppression of an entire populous get in the way of business.
Like the Hollerith machine organized the undesirables, Yahoo's logs can help the Chinese government find out who makes the most trouble for them. Don't forget, China still publicly denies the massacre in Tiananmen Square. They constantly put any dissidents in prison and God knows how many problem citizens just simply disappear. They are far from being America's equal when it comes to human rights.
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