Yahoo Sued for Giving User Information to China

taoman1 wrote with news of a CNN article about a suit brought against Yahoo! for alleged aiding in human rights violations. The World Organization for Human Rights USA has filed suit against the search company for (so the suit claims) assisting in torture by revealing information that led to the arrest of dissidents. "The lawsuit cites federal laws that govern torture and other violations of international law. Plaintiffs included jailed dissident Wang Xiaoning and his wife, Yu Ling, who was visiting San Francisco this week as part of the group's campaign. Sklar said he knew of three other cases, but the dissidents were reluctant to join the complaint for fear of harm to their families living in China. Among those three dissidents is journalist Shi Tao, who was sentenced in 2005 to 10 years in jail."

Comments

Re:Just visiting?

[Mockylock]

Before modding a post "off topic" (the parent to this), one may suggest looking up "CONCUBINE" somewhere to see that it is used in China to punish women in one way or another. Those who don't pay their taxes or have family issues MAY end up in a concubine. THIS is practice throughout the world, in Saudi and Turkey.. as well as other middle-eastern countries. How my comment is off topic as much as any above mine, is completely mind-blowing to me.

Re:Company Motto

[Clever7Devil]

Not quite.

From http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=17&articleId=9017 182&intsrc=hm_topic/:

According to the lawsuit, the Chinese court specifically relied on evidence supplied by Yahoo to identify and convict Xiaoning. The judgment noted that Yahoo HK informed investigators that a mainland China-based e-mail account (bxoguh@yahoo.com.cn) was used to set up Xiaoning's "aaabbbccc" Yahoo Group, and that the e-mail address ahgq@yahoo.com.cn, which Xiaoning used to post e-mails to that Yahoo Group, was also a mainland China-based account maintained by Xiaoning. The Chinese court said Yahoo was instrumental in causing Xiaoning's arrest and criminal prosecution, according to the lawsuit. Looks like Yahoo knew exactly what he was doing and led the authorities to his doorstep. It doesn't matter what doublespeak was used in the request, Yahoo had the facts in front of them.

As for Google, they have refused to give out personal information before. I am disappointed in their actions regarding censorship, but I don't see how you can compare it negatively to the torture and imprisonment of a citizen.

Re:Cost of doing business

[jellie]

That's true, but Yahoo (their local branch, whatever it's called) is also based in Hong Kong. So they could challenge the request in Hong Kong courts. Or just tell China that they had no information.