Yahoo named users to Iran authorities, say students
p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- Like other organisations such as Google, Microsoft and Cisco, Yahoo as an evil reputation when it comes to human rights.
Chinese journalist Shi Tao, jailed for 10 years for sending an email to a US pro-democracy group, joined Yu Ling, wife of Wang Xiaoning, another imprisoned cyber dissident, in suing Yahoo for its part facilitating the arrest, imprisonment, and torture of Chinese internet users, p2pnet posted in 2007.
The 2004 Chinese court verdict that sentenced Shi Tao to jail specifically cited Yahoo! as having provided Chinese authorities with information identifying Shi Tao as the owner of the e-mail account and the source of the communications, said World Organization for Human Rights USA`s Colleen M. Costello at the time.
Nor were Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning alone.
Now, Yahoo gave Iranian authorities the names and emails of some 200,000 Iranian Yahoo users, says a post on the Iranian Students Solidarity blog, quoted by Richard Koman on ZDNet.
“My sources indicate the information comes from a group of resisters who have infiltrated the administration and are leaking out important information,” says Koman, going on, “These sources say that Yahoo representatives met with Iranian Internet authorities after Google and Yahoo were shut down during the protests and agreed to provide the names of Yahoo subscribers who also have blogs in exchange for the government lifting the blocks on Yahoo.”
The blog accusing Yahoo is in Farsi, but ZDNet has a translation from the Iran student site, which has as its banner »»»
Site belongs to all Compatriots who are trying for returning of: Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights to Iran. Contacts: iranian.students.solidarity@gmail.com \ iranian.students.solidarity.info@gmail.com.
Says the ZDNet translation »»»
On 27th of Shahrivar (Day of Qods) when Iranians demonstrated again on the streets, the Iranian authorities in addition to blocking many internet sites, all over Iran, blocked or severely limited access to Yahoo and Google. Google did not react and its problem was resolved with 48 hours, but Yahoo sent a representative to Iran`s telecommunications ministry, to resolve the issue.
During the meeting with Iranian Internet authorities and telecommunications authorities, Yahoo representatives were asked to provide Iranian authorities with the names (data) on all Iranian Internet account holders in exchange for removing the block/filter on the Yahoo website.
The Yahoo representative subsequently expressed that currently there were more than 20 million email accounts and providing such a list will be a very time-consuming process. To which the IRGC (Islamic Republic Guardian Council) replied by asking the representative to provide email accounts of those individuals who have Yahoo accounts and are publishing blogs.
Apparently this made Yahoo`s task a bit easier and the Yahoo representative agreed to provide such a list within a matter of hours. Upon the receipt of such a list, which included approximately 200,000 emails, by the Iranian authorities, the regime immediately unblocked access to the Yahoo.com website. The list went back as far as five years and included active and inactive accounts and blogs.
It is necessary to mention here that the Iranian Yahoo is managed by Yahoo Corporation in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur).
“If true, this is a deeply troubling development and exposes Yahoo as determined to cooperate with repressive governments, regardless of who they might be,” Koman adds.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
p2pnet – Yahoo in new China dissident lawsuit, May 31, 2009
jailed for 10 years Yahoo Shi Tao scandal, March 31, 2006
Yu Ling Jailed dissident`s wife sues Yahoo, April 20, 2007
ZDNet – Did Yahoo provide Iran with names of 200,000 users?, October 8, 2009
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October 9th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Use a service that has no legal presence in your country. Because if a service does have a legal presence, it has to bow to your corrupt government.
October 9th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Lie on all your personal/contact information and use tor or a proxy service if you think your blog may bring unwanted attention.
October 10th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
ZDnet Editor-in-Chief Larry Dignan has retracted this story. See the retraction at this link and below:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=25745
October 9th, 2009 Retraction: Yahoo and Iran
Posted by Larry Dignan @ 5:05 pm
Categories: Yahoo Tags: Yahoo! Inc., Blogging, Government, Internet, Larry Dignan
TalkBack
Overnight one of our bloggers, Richard Koman, reported that Yahoo handed over user names to the Iranian government. Weâre retracting the blog post. Hereâs what went wrong. First, the post was based on a single source who had a clear agenda. That source wasnât properly filtered and his charges werenât verifiable by credible sources. Second, we never called Yahoo to verify the report or get an appropriate response. Blog networks still need to follow journalism 101 and Yahoo should have been called. In summary, our checks and balances went awry. We put a lot of trust in our bloggers to get it right and frankly we let you down with this report. The chain of events can be found on the post, but we wanted to do a separate item for the record. My apologies again and we will be taking corrective measures to prevent this breakdown.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic.
December 4th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
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