Yahoo reaches settlement in Chinese lawsuit

Posted by Jean Yves Chainon on November 14, 2007 at 10:58 AM

Yahoo has agreed to settle on the lawsuit brought against them by the World Organization for Human Rights USA on behalf several Chinese dissidents. The case claimed that Yahoo gave information to the Chinese government that was used to arrest the dissidents.

The decision by Yahoo came after a US Congressional hearing that “criticized Yahoo for not giving full details to its probe into the jailing of a reporter by Chinese authorities,” reported BBC News. No details of the settlement have been released.

Shi Tao, one journalist involved in the case and recipient of the World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom, was found, arrested, and jailed with a sentence of ten years after Yahoo gave his e-mail and IP address to officials. Shi Tao posted online a Chinese government order that forbade media organizations from marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, reported BBC News.

Yahoo originally admitted to releasing information to the Chinese government, but also argued that the information that they released had little connection to the arrests in China.

Michael Callahan, Yahoo's executive vice-president and general counsel, had originally told a congressional council that he was not sure as to why the Chinese government wanted to find Shi Tao. However, last week Callahan wrote to the committee saying yahoo employees, in fact, did have a document at the time saying "suspected illegal provision of state secrets,” but that he did not know that when he testified.

A congressional panel said that their evidence given to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last year was "at best inexcusably negligent" and at worst "deceptive."

Source: BBC News

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