Yahoo! is a nasty company, supporting totalitarian regimes and assisting in jailing those who raise the voice against those regimes. This is in short the impression you get when you read the recent press covering the incidents of jailing Chineese dissident. Noone seems to remember the analogy between IBM and Nazi Germany that used IBM's technology and equipment in concentration camps. In any case, IBM is not accused. And, perhaps, there is a reason at least in this. IBM is a for profit organization, doing business, and, despite of how harsh it sounds, making money is its primary objective. Yahoo! is in a similar position, doing business in China. And as such, it has to comply with the local China laws. The government never disclosed and never even thought of disclosing why they needed any information, and Yahoo! was not in a position to not comply with the requests even knowing how much negative publicity the previous requests turned out for it.

Furthermore, Yahoo! has to keep all of the personal information it can collect (and this is in the terms of service) and make sure that usage on its site is according to law. Would one in good faith make an assumption at this point that there is a presumption of privacy when it comes to Chinese accessing Yahoo! sites?

The bottom line seems to be that either Yahoo! is doing business in China and then as far as I am concerned its behavior is totally adequate or leave the country. And maybe the journalists, including those "without boarders", should think deeper about the issue before accusing the innocent.