Washington Post: Yahoo says it gave China data used to convict reporter (Excerpt)

HANGZHOU, China - A co-founder and senior executive of Yahoo Inc., the global Internet giant, confirmed Saturday that his company gave Chinese authorities information later used to convict a Chinese journalist now imprisoned for leaking state secrets.

The journalist, Shi Tao, was sentenced last spring to 10 years in prison for sending foreign-based Web sites a copy of a message from Chinese authorities warning domestic journalists about reporting on sensitive issues, according to a translation of the verdict disseminated by the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders.

Speaking at an Internet conference in this eastern Chinese city, Yahoo's co-founder, Jerry Yang, said his company had no choice but to cooperate with the authorities.

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Yahoo's role in the imprisonment of a journalist is the latest in a string of controversies surrounding the activities of global technology companies in China and their assistance to the state security apparatus.

Many of the foreign technology powers that market themselves as forces for the free flow of information in other countries have made accommodations with an often repressive Communist Party government as they pursue business opportunities in a land of seemingly limitless potential.

Google, the popular Web search site, has been accused by Internet monitors based in the United States and Europe of preventing Internet users in China from accessing sites Chinese authorities deem sensitive, such as those carrying reports about Tibet, Taiwan and [...] Falun Gong.

Cisco Systems has sold China much of the equipment authorities use to block access to such sites, though the company maintains that China's use of the gear is beyond its purview.

Three years ago, Yahoo drew fire for reportedly signing a pledge in which it agreed to abide by all Chinese censorship laws -- an implicit promise to bar access to Web sites deemed off-limits.

The Shi Tao case has become particularly high-profile because it involves the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist at a time when the government is cracking down on domestic media that report on topics seen as challenging the state's authority.

Shi, 37, was a reporter for Contemporary Business News, a newspaper in the southwestern province of Hunan.

He apparently used a Yahoo e-mail account to send a Chinese-language Web site based in New York a message from state censorship authorities.