Yahoo Faces New Suit From Chinese Dissidents

« Are Comcast Flacks Scouring the Valley for Fresh Advocates? | Main | Is Safari Less Secure? »

March 3, 2008

Yahoo Faces New Suit From Chinese Dissidents

Rebecca MacKinnon has a rundown on a new suit against Yahoo:

"Another development that surfaced in the English-language media on Thursday and Friday this past week is a new lawsuit against Yahoo!. It was filed on February 21st in San Francisco by two men, Guo Quan, a Nanjing-based scholar and acting chairman of the underground New People's Party, and Zheng Cunzhu, head of the Western U.S. branch of the Democratic Party of China.

"They are suing Yahoo! for a couple of reasons. Guo Quan says that Yahoo! China has removed his name from their search results without any legally valid reasons, after Guo published an open letter calling for political reform. Zheng Cunzhu claims that he cannot return to China for fear of arrest - because Yahoo!'s handover of e-mail records to the police also implicated him - and as a result has lost property."

MacKinnon points out that this case isn't as strong as that of the dissidents at the center of recent congressional hearings:

"Li Zhi wasn't convicted on evidence supplied by Yahoo! alone. In addition to Yahoo!, the Chinese e-mail service SINA also handed over e-mail records that were used as evidence against Li. This subtlety and a few other details were glossed over in the initial reports and press releases in 2006 about Li Zhi's case, leading Roland Soong to question the extent to which journalists and human rights activists care about facts. (In my response to Roland at the time, I agreed people messed up, but didn't think that meant Yahoo! was off the hook.)"

She also touches on older news about Yahoo's Jerry Yang appealing to the State Department for help in getting China to release the dissidents it has jailed:

"Last week, in response to an appeal by Jerry Yang, Condoleezza Rice raised the cases of Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao with Chinese authorities on her visit to Beijing. A Chinese version of Jerry Yang's letter to Rice is circulating around the internet. It's unclear whether Rice's intervention will result in an early release for the two men. But in the past, getting one's case raised by the U.S. Secretary of State has tended to boost a person's chances of early release. The Chinese have also agreed to resume a stalled human rights dialogue. This is no doubt tied to concerns about international criticisms in the run-up to the Olympics."

I haven't thought much of Jerry Yang's "gosh we feel just terrible" line as the story of Yahoo's involvement in China has unfolded, but I'll risk someone telling me it's no big thing that happens all the time when I admit that I am impressed that he has taken his concern to people who can, presumably, help right some of the wrongs Yahoo has committed there.

(Link)

Previously: