Yahoo Defends Itself By Publishing A Story For Their News Service....

Yahoo new service has run a story on their recent complicity in the jailing of a Chinese journalist by providing email information to authorities. Some journalistic integrity here, running a news story on yourself defending yourself from criticism.

"We did not know what they wanted information for," Yang told reporters. "We are not told what they look for. If they give us the proper documentation in a court order, we give them things that satisfy local laws."

Should Yahoo have refused to cooperate anyway? Suppose you work for Yahoo in Beijing, and one morning the cops arrive in your office and say that they need you to hand over some information. They don't tell you the details of the case. For all you know, the security forces are investigating a spammer.

ASKING FOR TROUBLE? That's not implausible. After all, spamming has become a major problem in China, and lots of junk e-mail that clutters the inboxes of Internet users in the U.S. come from or are routed through computers in China.

Or maybe the inquiry is about someone whom authorities suspect of peddling child pornography over the Net. Or a terrorist using e-mail to plan an attack. You just don't know. Should you refuse to cooperate anyway? Should Yahoo have a "just say no" policy, refusing to provide any information to the Chinese police, period?

So Yahoo co-founder 'billionaire' Yang has been called in to defend their actions and try to weasel out of their complicity.

There is a big difference in providing information on a potential spam suspect and providing information that jails a journalist on a trumped up politically motivated charge. "Oh, sorry, I meant to shoot my gun in the air but instead I shot that poor slob in the head. Its not my fault that I am complicit in a moral crime since I was just doing what I was told, [Yahoo pleads in the Nuremberg trials on the net]. Golly gee, I didn't mean to do that and couldn't help it, so I am not guilty, right?" We can hear the billionaires at Yahoo plead.

Steve Martin once suggested that a great way to get some money, would be go down to the bank with a gun, tell them to give you some and then if you are caught, just claim that you forgot that it was illegal.

I am no legal expert, but can't yahoo fight to make it somewhat more difficult and time consuming for the Chinese to gain such information, make it an issue or delay and let the world press get wind of the heavy handedness of Chinese authorities or do they plan to just roll over every single time that some Chinese official or court pulls some legal stunt. "Oh," you can hear the sweet yahoo voices say. "Do you want some tea, while I dig up the information that you need to put some poor unwitting slob in jail for a decade or two?"

As far as I concerned, as a member of the global communication system, they have a duty to step back and take time to figure out where this is all taking them. They played a fool's game with the Chinese government and have already played cards with the devil. There is no way that they can win.

We should all stop using Yahoo and send them a strong message.