Wondered about Yahoo! and China? Censored search results? Shopping journalists to a communist state machine?
Here’s what a company spokesperson told me:
“Yahoo! opposes the punishment of any person on the grounds of what may be called free speech. We firmly oppose that. However, we have to abide by the local laws of whatever country we operate in. If we did not, it could lead to the imprisonment of our own employees. These are legal demands. We don’t give out any information except to accredited legal authorities. Also, they don’t typically tell us what the information is for. They have a warrant and we have to comply.”
So why operate in China, then, if it might lead to morally precarious actions?
“We believe that Chinese people are better off with Yahoo! than they would be otherwise. The benefits of having better access to the internet and the spread of knowledge that implies outweigh these concerns. But we have to obey the laws of the countries that we operate in.”
So what legal obligations are you under in China?
“You’d have to ask Alibaba about that. They have operated Yahoo! China since 2005. We have policies about what we will do, but we don’t know the exact restrictions.”
Satisfied? Sure you are…
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