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Yahoo! apologizes for Senate 'misunderstanding'

by on05 November 2007

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Admits not telling the whole story on Chinese government


Yahoo!
has apologized to the U.S. Senate for not telling the whole truth about its dealings with China over the  imprisonment of a Chinese dissident.

The public apology comes just before a Congressional committee hearing next week, at which Yahoo! Chief Executive Jerry Yang is expected to answer tough questions about the search engine's dealings with the Chinese government. Human rights groups claim Yahoo! helped the Chinese government identify Shi Tao, a reporter who was sentenced last April to 10 years in prison for leaking Chinese State secrets abroad.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee was furious after a Yahoo! executive had given "false information" at a congressional hearing in 2006 about what the company knew of the Chinese government's investigation of Shi. Yahoo claimed that IYahoo China, then a subsidiary of Yahoo!, passed information about one of its users to Chinese authorities in 2004 without knowledge of why the Chinese government wanted the information.

However, in October 2006 Yahoo! executives realized that the order from the Chinese government mentioned an investigation into state secrets.
Last modified on 05 November 2007
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