Comments on: Statement of Chairman Lantos at hearing, Yahoo! Inc.’s Provision of False Information to Congress

By: Miguel

Miguel — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 11:42:00 +0000

Thomas, it’s simply the cycnicism of the whole situation. Simply putting Yahoo in the hot seat does very little. The finger pointing from the Senate does little. Put Yahoo, and Google (self censoring google.cn), Mattel, Walmart, the congress, the administration, etc., put them all into the hot seat or you don’t do anything.

Did anybody in the Senate or House or Aministration (or Google or Yahoo) raise hell about the New York Time’s reporter who was jailed in China, falsely accused of revealing state secrets to the paper and for fraud, to cite just one example.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/international/asia/24beijing.html?_r=1&n;=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/Z/Zhao%20Yan&oref;=slogin

Like I stated before, Yahoo deserves what it got, but come on, let’s bring the whole show out on the floor, don’t just point the finger at these guys.

By: Thomas Hawk

Thomas Hawk — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 10:47:00 +0000

Joseph, did I miss something? Was Sergey sitting up there with Jerry Yang? Did Tom Lantos forget to mention Google and their need to issue an apology to Shi Tao’s family?

By: Joseph Ellis

Joseph Ellis — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 20:53:00 +0000

Again you fail to mention that Google has cooperated with China in a similar manner in the past.

Why do you have such a vendetta against Yahoo? It’s kind of hard to take you seriously when there are such clear cut ulterior motives.

By: Rick Keir

Rick Keir — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:52:00 +0000

I'm not happy with what Yahoo did, but the hypocrisy here reeks.

This would be the same China that forced a US spy plane in 2001, to which the reaction by Congress and the White House was...nothing.

China still holds most favored nation status with the US, why should Yahoo be expected to treat them differently?

Isn't the White House calling on Congress to retroactively grant immunity to AT&T; for enabling spying on US citizens. Yahoo was obeying the law, AT&T; was breaking it.

By: Miguel

Miguel — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 08:38:00 +0000

While Yahoo shouldn’t go unscathed by this episode (how about Google?), I think yesterday’s Senate show was a tremendous display of cynicism. What is the Senate doing on it’s own? Are they condemning China on a regular basis for their lack of respect for human rights? Are they putting their foot down and demanding a change? It seems to me the finger they’re (rightly) pointing at Yahoo needs to turn around and point at themselves as well.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:50:00 +0000

Thomas:

Thanks for posting this in its entirety. I have to say that I’m impressed by the directness of the language in Lantos’ statement.

A little bit from the NY Times today, including this small bit: “Yang and Callahan turned around from the witness table and bowed from their seats to Shi’s mother, Gao Qinsheng, who bowed in return and then began to weep.”

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Congress-Yahoo.html

By: Sean

Sean — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:17:00 +0000

Wow. I wanna know what happened next? Did he turn around and offer an apology?

By: Thiago

Thiago — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:28:00 +0000

When you are faced with the potential loss of a billion people market, I guess you have to bend over and spread wide. Or so it seems.

One more for repression record for Yahoo!Inc. How low will they sink?

And yes, I am a heavy Yahoo! services user. Just not sure for how long anymore.