Yahoo: China police informer?
p2pnet / p2p News:- Yahoo is trying to evade charges that it helped Communist Chinese Net police to jail a local journalist by saying it has to stick to rules laid down in countries in which it operates.
“Just like any other global company, Yahoo must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based,” Yahoo spokesperson Mary Osako is quoted as saying by the Agence France Presse.
Shi Tao, 37, was accused of emailing state secrets to foreigners. The ‘secrets’ he supposedly revealed, and for which he was jailed for 10 years, comprised his notes on a government circular that detailed restrictions on the media.
He used his account, “to post on the Internet a government order barring Chinese media from marking the 15th anniversary of the brutal 1989 crackdown on democracy activists at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square,” says AFP.
“Yahoo’s actions were revealed in the court’s verdict, copies of which were posted on overseas Chinese websites.”
Yahoo, along with Google and Microsoft, have been accused of putting business ahead of integrity by succumbing to China’s pressure and censoring sensitive information on its Chinese search engines, web sites and blogs, says AFP, adding:
In 2002, “Yahoo voluntarily signed the ‘Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the China Internet Industry,’ agreeing to abide by Chinese censorship regulations.”
“Yahoo ! obviously complied with requests from the Chinese authorities to furnish information regarding an IP address that linked Shi Tao to materials posted online, and the company will yet again simply state that they just conform to the laws of the countries in which they operate,” said Reporters Without Borders yesterday.
” But does the fact that this corporation operates under Chinese law free it from all ethical considerations?”
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See:-
jail a journalist – Yahoo: ‘China police informant’, September 7, 2005
Agence France Presse – Yahoo sidesteps claims it aided China to jail journalist, September 9, 2005
September 9th, 2005 at 5:36 am
What happens if a company is forced to try and comply with 2 or more countries different sets of laws at the same time?
For example in one country it might be mandatory to only show pictures of women wearing headscarves (don’t actually know how to spell the proper name sorry), whereas other countries might make it illegal to show women wearing them.
Sure the company could have different websites for each country, but what happens if a citizen of the first country sees the second country’s website (by accident or design) and complains to their local authorities? Then by unhappy coincidence (or deliberate malice) someone in the second country sees the website for the first country and also complains to their local authorities.
Suddenly both branch offices have govts screaming at them for violating their laws and insisting they change all their websites to conform to only their country’s laws in case more of their citizens stumble into the wrong country’s site.
The old saying “Damned if they do and Damned if they don’t” springs to mind. If something isn’t done, companies will simply be unable to operate in more than one country simultaneously.
If i was a conspiracy theorist, i’d suggest that this is being done deliberately so that big biz can demand “certainty of legislation” to force all countries to alter their laws. Which would just happen to involve “altering” any laws that big biz deems “may negatively impact our earnings potential”.
Of course that would be just silly. Big biz is our friend. Just ask them, they’ll tell you. Right before they sue you for daring to even consider thinking about the possibility that they might not be.
September 9th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
Excellent article by Nick Parker on Slyck regarding privacy – including Yahoo telling tales on 10 users of a Californian BB
See http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=902