HANGZHOU, China (AFP) – Yahoo Inc. chief Jerry Yang said his company was complying with local laws when information on an Internet user was passed to Chinese police in a move leading to the jailing of a mainland journalist. Yang, speaking at the Alibaba China Internet Summit here, also said he wasn’t happy with the 10-year sentence to journalist Shi Tao, jailed for passing on a government censorship order through his Yahoo e-mail account.
"We did not know what they wanted information for, 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," Yang told journalists.
"I don’t like the outcome of what happened with this thing, we get a lot of these orders, but we have to comply with the law and that’s what we need to do."
Shi, 37, was convicted in April for "revealing state secrets," by using his email account to post on the Internet a government order barring Chinese media from marking the 15th anniversary of the brutal June 1989 crackdown on democracy activists in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Last week, Yahoo’s actions were revealed in the court’s verdict, copies of which were posted on overseas Chinese websites. According to the verdict, the California-based company’s Hong Kong subsidiary, Yahoo Hong Kong, gave the details to China’s state security. Shi, who worked for the Hunan-based Contemporary Business News, has insisted he is innocent, arguing that the government order was not a state secret.
Yahoo co-founder Yang stressed his company must comply with local regulations, but said he was also concerned with the safety of Internet users in China.
"We are all here in China that represents quite a lot of opportunities, not only on the business side, but also on the social side," Yang said.
"We look at our users’ interests, without our users we don’t have business." At the same time, it was essential that Yahoo employees abide by local laws as well, he added.
"I would not put our employees at risk in anyway, shape or form and when it comes to issues such as seeking user information we have a very clear cut set of rules."
"The government of any country has engaged with us through legal documentation or legal procedures, we get a lot of those every day around the world."
Also speaking at the summit was former US president Bill Clinton who sidestepped talk of China’s jailing of Internet political dissidents, but indicated web censorship could have a commercial backlash in the future.
"In China, I think that so far the political system and restraint on political speech in the Internet has not seemed to have any adverse commercial consequences," Clinton said. "It will be interesting to see whether that is true of the future."
"In America, the Internet is this wild cauldron of dissenting voices, we have now whole different media over the Internet with all the blog sites in America," he said. Earlier Saturday leading rights groups urged Clinton to encourage Western Internet companies to respect freedom of speech when operating in China.
"Internet companies must be open on where they stand with respect to their human rights obligations," said the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.
"President Clinton is a good ambassador to relay this message and has a valuable opportunity this Saturday." I
n 2002, Yahoo became one of many firms to voluntarily sign onto the government-mandated "Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the China Internet Industry". Other US software and Internet companies, such as Microsoft and Google, have also adapted their services in China in ways that have restricted access to information.
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