See the link below for info about Yahoo! coughing up search and email records on a dissident who was convicted of “trying to overthrow the socialist system” by joining a Democratic group and posting to his blog.

Yahoo! issued a statement, referenced in the article linked below, explaining that Yahoo! cooperates with Chinese authorities because Yahoo! believes its continuing presence in China contributes to modernizing Chinese society. (It’s a Greater Good argument, or an Ends Justifies the Means argument)

My American libertarian sensibilities scream at Yahoo! to get the hell out of China if they must contribute to a repressive police state system where dissidents are jailed for years for their words.

But then I think: What if Yahoo! and Google decided not to do business with China, due to their American unwillingness to help put people in prison for their political thoughts?

In that case, the Chinese government would form its own Big Brother-Loving search engine company, willing to snitch on the dissidents.

How would the world’s online industry handle traffic flowing from the Big Brother Chinese Search Engine?

Now, if you know how the internet and search engines work, then you know that websites can choose to BAN search engines from spidering and caching their site. How many USA companies would BAN the Chinese search engine from spidering? How many USA businesses would BAN referrals from Chinese search engines? Don’t we WANT Chinese money? I think USA businesses would by and large open their web portals to Chinese search engines, despite the repressive government.

Also, you can bet that the Chinese search engine would contain FAR less info than even the heavily censored Chinese versions of Yahoo! and Google. Therefore, Yahoo! and Google will expose the Chinese people to far more info and political commentary than the Chinese’s home-grown search engine would make available.

So I can understand Yahoo!’s argument that it’s better in the long term, for freedom, to cooperate with the Chinese now.

BUT —– I still come down on the side of Stay the Hell Out of China, if it means you have to cooperate with a repressive government in busting people. Have some principles, Yahoo! and Google.

Chinese dissidents will find backdoors around the Big-Brother-Loving Chinese Government Search Engine. For example, a website will appear to be acceptable to the Chinese Search Engine - but through word of mouth, dissidents will learn what codes to type to open up the REAL content of the site, content that is hidden from the Search Engine ….. things like that.

Google and Yahoo! could be in the forefront of providing tools for the rest of the world to use in masking their real content from the Chinese spiders …. etc, but NOT if they are in bed with the Chinese government.

It’s unimaginable that Google and Yahoo! would agree to be a part of the police state in China.

Tibet Will Be Free Yahoo Helps China Jail Another Cyberdissident

Yahoo provided information to the Chinese government that helped them jail Li Zhi, a democracy advocate. Li was given an eight-year sentence in 2003 for subverting the state power and inciting subversion, which is the shocking crime of trying to join the Chinese Democratic Party. Li had also been critical of the corruption of local government officials in online discussion groups. Li was convicted on the basis of information Yahoo provided about his email account and Yahoo user name activity. Yahoo had recently provided the Chinese government with information that was used to put journalist Shi Tao in jail for ten years.