Yahoo has come out in defense of its actions in China.
From LA Times:
Yahoo Inc. on Monday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought against the Internet company by civil rights advocates, arguing that it had become unfairly ensnared in a political debate over free speech in China.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company is fighting efforts to hold it accountable for the imprisonment and alleged torture of two Chinese citizens after it disclosed their identities to government officials. Yahoo says its Chinese subsidiaries did so to comply with the Chinese government’s rules.
Yahoo’s predicament illustrates the difficulty many Internet companies face in expanding to China. Essentially, they are information brokers in a country that tightly limits the spread of information.
“China is going to go from being a low-cost producer to being a demand engine for the global economy,” said Geoffrey Garrett, president of the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles. “American firms are finding that to sell in China, you need to be in China. . . . The Chinese government still controls the economy, [so] you have to play by the government’s rules.”
Read on.
[tags]Yahoo Defends Actions, Chinese Law, Freedoms[/tags]
