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."

Just visiting?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

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.

Something makes me think they're going to have a really shitty time when they get back to China.

Re:Just visiting?

[Mockylock]

Concubine anyone?

Re:Matter

[plasmacutter]

which would be china right?

(obligatory futurama)
in the korean war china realized the US soldiers had a preset kill limit, so they threw wave after wave of their own men at them until they stopped.

i forgot who it was who said it, but they were so buried in soldiers they weren't retreating, but "advancing in the other direction".

Re:Company Motto

[Anonymous Coward]

Do people really think that the Chinese would really go to any company (especially a foreign one) and ask, "We'd like you to help us track down a dissident so that we can suppress him or her."

What they did was say something like, "We'd like to track down a suspected criminal." Yahoo (nor any other company, for that matter) doesn't have the option of replying, "Well, we'll give you the information if it's for a certain kind of crime, but not for the ones we don't agree with." They have to comply with the law or faces trouble themselves.

And for the Google fan-boys who think Google would have never done that, I call bullshit. They just haven't been asked to yet. But they have shown that they are just as willing to aid Chinese suppression just as much as any other corporation. Remember the censored Chinese Google search? One could even argue that Google harmed more Chinese citizens (all Chinese users) by agreeing to censor itself than Yahoo did (one Chinese user).

Anyway. Whatever.

Issues with international companies

[ZorbaTHut]

It's interesting how it's essentially impossible to do business without breaking laws now. If they hadn't given away this information, they would now be having the Chinese government talk about how Yahoo must hate freedom and doesn't respect the laws of their country.

I know a lot of people must be thinking "well, the decision is obvious, they should have followed the American laws instead since ours are more free", but remember that Yahoo actually has workers in China. If Yahoo didn't conform to Chinese laws, they would undoubtedly be hit with some kind of penalties, likely trickling down to their employees. This is probably not an issue they thought of when they opened offices in China.

Of course, Google has offices in China also. It'll be interesting to see what their solution is if the Chinese government gets sufficiently pissed off at them.

Re:Cost of doing business

[Tofystedeth]

Also from Wikipedia

Godwin's Law does not apply to discussions directly addressing genocide, propaganda or other mainstays of the Nazi regime

Do you suppose any of they've done to this guy, or to anyone else they consider "subversive" or "destabilizing" might fit under "mainstays of the Nazi regime"?