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janelle’s journal

Yahoo in China

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Has anyone been following this situation with Yahoo in China?



What do you think? Does Yahoo have no responsibiity for the actions of the Chinese government? Were they simply following the laws of the land? Should US companies do business in China if they are subject to the Chinese government in a way that makes them complicit with a human rights violation?
71 words

💬 15 comments

  1. museumchick ·

    I hadn't been following what was going on, so I'm really glad you linked to that article.

    I think that Yahoo shares some responsibility for what happened. In my opinion, they didn't have to turn over the documents. Maybe many other people would do the same if put in that situation... but I still don't believe that makes it okay.

    If I were a US company, I would be very hesitant to do business in China. They have a horrible record of human rights violations, and I wouldn't want to support that. But that can probably be said of a lot of countries, so I'm not sure where I would stand if I was in that position.

  2. joshua ·

    Yahoo are in a difficult position - they have to follow Chinese directions or they will not be able to do business in the country. They simply should not do what they are doing - I don't think the business is worth the atrocious publicity that providing private e-mails to the Chinese version of the Stasi brings.

  3. janelle ·

    I think my ultimate conclusion is the same as you, @joshua and @museumchick. If they are complicit in human rights violations because they have to follow the laws of the land, then they probably should not be operating in that country.

    I'm guessing they have already made ethical compromises (by Western World standards) regarding censorship in order to operate in China.

  4. zobar ·

    Should American companies provide foreign governments information they demand to spy on their citizens?

    Should American companies be complicit in our own government's efforts to spy on its citizens?

    Mu [the question is wrong]. Why are governments relying so heavily on private industry to carry out their official functions in the first place?

    - Z

  5. ajay ·

    [ I'm speaking in my private capacity here ]

    How are Yahoo's actions any different from these :::link::: and why is the White House asking for retroactive immunity for the telecom companies :::link::: ?

    Talking about "human rights", have you looked at Gitmo recently? And how many people in this country have been locked up (or sent abroad for "rendition") because of the telecom companies' cooperation?

    Why is it OK to blame Yahoo for this, and then turn around and patronize companies like WalMart and Toys R Us, which almost exclusively peddle "Made in China" goods? If noone bought Chinese goods, the government there wouldn't have the money to crack down on its citizens, right? Then why aren't we, the American consumers, also responsible for the HR violations in China?

    Here's the short version of the story: the company got a subpoena. It had no idea of the crime committed; JUST LIKE IT IS IN THE U.S.!

  6. jim ·

    There is pressure on everyone you named to change their ways, ajay, people protest against Gitmo, the US Government, and Yahoo, together and separately. I don't shop at Walmart, lots of people don't because of just what you mentioned. It is possible to criticize Yahoo for its decisions without first invoking a litany against everyone else - you can't talk about everything at once and still be coherent.

    Also, if the US Government jumped off a cliff would Yahoo jump off too? :)

  7. joshua ·

    Yahoo shareholders rejected in June the notion of adopting a policy that would oppose censorship on the internet.

    :::link:::

    We've always known why, but unfortunately they have taken further steps to help the Chinese government jail people. Yahoo is no longer considered a leader with respect to the ethos of the Internet, to be kind about it.

    I find the idea that Yahoo didn't know a crime was committed to be incredibly naive and hard to believe. Forget about Gitmo for a second - nothing that the US government, or other companies in the US for that matter, have done can excuse or otherwise justify what Yahoo did. Bringing up Wal-Mart and Toys R Us is merely a distraction meant to muddy up the waters. I sincerely hope that this is not the way Yahoo PR intends on handling it, because they will get slaughtered in the press if they do so.

    Nobody is excusing the telecoms. Why should Yahoo be excused? My God, they directly helped to jail a political dissident by literally handing over private data! Then, Yahoo mislead Congress about it.

    Suggesting that somehow American consumers are at fault for human rights abuses in China is contrived. That is a bizarre notion. Whats next - we all have to scale back, or possibly even pay more, for things in order to prevent foreign governments that we can't control from abusing their own people? Shit, China has done that all on their own for 50 years without the big bad capitalists helping them out.

  8. jason ·

    The China situation is very delicate. They could easily just dump all of the US Dollars they have, which would mean very tough economic consequences for us. That's why we (and, more severely, the rest of the world) act like wimps.

    Now, if you guys can come up with some really great ideas on how to give China the finger right now, while simultaneously re-supplying our stores with replacements for the millions of products made in China, then I'm all ears.

    They abuse human rights, they pollute the planet, and what do they get for punishment? The Olympics. It's a mad world.

  9. janelle ·

    I definitely feel a little disgust at the Olympics in China. To make it worse, China is stepping up a quiet campaign to drive missionaries out of the country before the Olympics. The Olympics attracts a large number of evangelists and China wants to make sure that there are no missionaries in the country to provide home base for missionaries coming into the country from around the world to share the faith.

    and yeah, @jason, we dug ourselves a hole giving China such a financial hold over us from multiple angles. It put ourselves in a weak position.

  10. janelle ·

    @zobar:
    "Mu [the question is wrong]. Why are governments relying so heavily on private industry to carry out their official functions in the first place?"

    Because it's efficient. Why have experts on the internet/extracting information from the internet when an industry already exists that can accomplish it? It's just good business sense to not re-invent the wheel. It's a positive thing when the government can ask the internet agencies to assist with tracking down purveyors of child porn websites, but a negative thing of course when the government is illegally spying on individuals.

  11. joshua ·

    Its efficient, and passing the buck is a politician's best friend.

  12. ajay ·

    [ Again: all of this is personal opinion ]

    You guys misunderstood me.

    I'm not saying that "everyone is bad, so it's OK".
    I'm trying to point out the parallels: that even the USG does the same thing that ChiComs are accused of; and that US companies like ATT, Verizon, etc. are doing exactly what Yahoo is alleged to have done.

    Basically it boils down to this: A government agency comes to a communications company and says "We believe Citizen X committed a crime and revealed state secrets/is planning an attack. We need his phone records/email records." What should the company do? Defy the subpoena (and the law of the land) and get its officers sent to jail

    It is not as if Yahoo is volunteering this information; they are responding to valid, legal requests for information from a local law-enforcement agency.


    I brought up WalMart/ToysRus because the simple fact is: if these companies did not bankroll the ChiComs, then that government wouldn't have the balls to give the world the finger (while fisting Tibet).

  13. james ·

    This very detailed and expansive discussion is great everyone. But I think you are all missing one very important fact, without which all your arguments have no footing:

    tacos are awesome.

  14. janelle ·

    <smacks self in head>, of course, @james, that's the true crux of the argument!

  15. metalpeter ·

    First of all I kinda remember this same idea when Google and Yahoo both decided to operate in China. I don't think my thoughts from then have really changed. If yahoo wants to operate in China then they have to follow the laws and the culture of china. The company has a choice it can say we don't agree with there ideas and take the money anyways or take the moral high ground and not do Busines there. This would be true of any country not just in china. What makes no sense to me is why does Yahoo say anything to congress they have no say of what they do in another country and how they follow that other countires laws.

    I myself think that Yahoo shouldn't be in china. I'm not sure where they would get there internet from but I'm sure some company could be formed inside the country and they would work with the government. It is to bad that some gorilla internet company couldn't form that was independent of the government, but it would might just get shut down and everyone would be jailed for life.

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