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."

Matter

[fireman sam]

So when will The World Organization for Human Rights USA bring suit against George W for allowing torture in the detention camps?

Cost of doing business

[Tofystedeth]

in the Ars article they said Yahoo claims that it is simply following local law and that it has no choice but to comply with legal requests from the Chinese government if it wants to keep doing business in that country. If Yahoo had existed during WWII would they have ratted out Jews to Hitler? But I guess it's okay as long as they can turn a dime.

Re:Matter MOD Parent up

[wondercool]

Very good point

Check http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html [un.org]

Where to begin??? Guantánamo Bay

USA is in violation of (at least):
Article 7.
            All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 8.
            Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9.
            No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10.
            Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Re:Big Deal

[sgt_doom]

Exactly so - and everytime an American dufus (people will soundly insult me for suggesting this, of course) buys from Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Nordstrom's or Old Navy, they are enriching the Chinese Red Army, which is the owner of record of all those various factories.

Then the Chinese Red Army, via the Department of Public Security, rounds up those dissidents, tortures them to death, preserves their remains, and ships them to the USA and elsewhere, where those traitorous fools and half-wits, pay the Chinese government for the privilege of viewing those murdered dissidents' remains - it's called the Bodies Exhibition, to be found in LA, NYC, Philadelphia, Miami and Seattle. Boy is that ever totally f**ked up.....

Re:Just asking for clarification...

[Rocketship Underpant]

"Just want to know what the heck the standard should be... I guess it depends upon who you are..."

I can see why you're confused. You appear to be missing your moral compass.

The issue transcends government laws. Imprisoning and torturing someone for having a different point of view is despicable no matter what the law on one piece of dirt says. Assisting and participating in that incarceration makes one equally culpable. The managers and executives of Yahoo! went along with this crap just so they could avoid some legal hassles and, I suppose, make extra time for that golf game on Saturday.

That's why Yahoo sucks, and this lawsuit will hopefully succeed.

Re:Issues with international companies

[Nasarius]

Then Yahoo simply shouldn't be doing business in China. Yes, it's impossible to conduct ethical business in a country with a horrific human rights record [hrw.org]. I don't see why this should come as a surprise to anyone.

This is probably not an issue they thought of when they opened offices in China.

Very funny. Of course they know, they just don't give a shit. That's why they handed over this information. Anything for the sake of making money.

Re:Just asking for clarification...

[Hal_Porter]

I think the idea is to scare international companies with lawsuits to stop them rolling over to totalitarian governments. E.g. if you look at WWII, lots of companies complied with local laws when they used slave labour. But that didn't stop them getting sued a long time after the governments that made the laws got obliterated.

So if you're an American company doing business in China now, you need to weigh up the benefits of complying with morally invalid laws made by a tiny ruling clique to screw the rest of the population with the risk of getting sued once that clique gets replaced by a more representative government. If lawsuits like this didn't happen, companies would just do whatever the junta of the country they were doing in wanted if it made them money.

Actually, if I were doing business there and I was so close to the bastards who run the place that I sold dissidents to them for short term commercial gain, I'd have more immediate concerns about my personal safety should they lose power. Maybe I'm cynical, but I suspect the Chinese are likely to be a lot less forgiving of foreign collaborators than Chinese ones once the revolution comes.

Enjoy your flight back to Shanghai!

Don't be evil

[LingNoi]

When the news came out that Google was going to censor their search data but inform people they were being censored everyone went nuts.

Yahoo helps the Chinese government put people in prison for 10 years and no one says anything. The Yahoo employees had a choice they could have just said they didn't collect the data that the Chiense government needed. Instead they wasted their time digging out that data and handing it over to the government.

Would Google do the same? The Thai government asked Google for information on who posted the YouTube video of their king and they denied them the information. If they find out who did it they'd probably be in Jail for 10 Years as well.

Maybe I'm being too hard on Yahoo after all "they're just doing their job". Ofcourse the Nazi Soldiers were also just doing their "job" when they killed millions of people.