Yahoo’s dirty secret
According to Reporters San Frontières (Reporters Without Borders), Yahoo has been directly assisting the Chinese regime in the oppression of legitimate journalism:
…does the fact that this corporation operates under Chinese law free it from all ethical considerations ? How far will it go to please Beijing ?”
Reporters Without Borders added : “Information supplied by Yahoo ! led to the conviction of a good journalist who has paid dearly for trying to get the news out. It is one thing to turn a blind eye to the Chinese government’s abuses and it is quite another thing to collaborate.” …
What Yahoo does is entirely its choice, but anyone with any sort of ethical problem with this also has the choice to:
- Stop using the Yahoo site – search engine, email etc.
- Uninstall any Yahoo software they have on their computer (Desktop Search, Konfabulator etc.)
- Make sure that Yahoo is not allowed to simply get away with this, and ensure that as many people as possible are told about it
As TheBlogHerald points out, it isn’t just spinelessness that is making Yahoo interested in becoming an organ of state terror:
A US-based multinational, Yahoo! Appears to be willing to go to any lengths to gain shares of the Chinese market and it is investing heavily in local companies. In 2003, it spent 120 million dollars to buy the search engine 3721.com. More recently Yahoo! acquired a large stake in the Internet giant Alibaba in an operation that reportedly cost nearly a billion dollars. Reporters Without Borders has written several times to Yahoo! executives in an attempt to alert it to the ethical issues raised by its Chinese investments. These letters have so far received no answer.