Yahoo! in China: Contradicting its values

16 May 2008

By Leo Tallay

Yahoo! was the first major foreign Internet company to enter the Chinese market in 1999.

Three years later, Yahoo! voluntarily signed the Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the Chinese Internet Industry, in effect aligning itself with the Chinese Government’s approach to suppressing dissent when it was under no legal obligation to do so, and damaging its own credibility in the process.

Yahoo!’s behaviour in China clearly contradicts the core values it established for itself. The company has stated publicly that since its foundation in 1995 it has been guided by beliefs that are closely held by its founders and sustained by its employees.

"… We believe the Internet is built on openness, from information access to creative expression. We are committed to providing individuals with easy access to information and opportunities to openly communicate and exchange views and opinions," says Yahoo!

Censoring online searching

But from the beginning of its operations in China, Yahoo! has censored the local version of its search engine, cn.yahoo.com. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) found in 2006 that Yahoo! was the worst offender in censorship tests that it carried out on Chinese versions of Internet search engines Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft MSN, as well as their local competitor Baidu.

In tests using "subversive" key words such as '6-4' (June 4, the date of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre), or "Tibet independence", RSF found Yahoo! was censoring more than even Baidu. It used a variety of techniques, such as returning pro-government results, displaying an error message or actually blocking all searches for up to an hour until the search tool could be used again.

Jailed for an email

Also disturbing are revelations that user data handed over by Yahoo! to Chinese authorities assisted in the arrest and conviction of at least four people who used email accounts from the cn.mail.yahoo.com. service.

Among these cases is that of Shi Tao, a journalist sentenced to 10 years in prison in April 2005 for "divulging state secrets abroad". Court documents obtained by the Dui Hua Foundation, a human-rights non-governmental organisation, and RSF found that Yahoo! Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd provided information to the Chinese authorities regarding an Internet protocol address linking Shi Tao to material posted on a US-based dissident website.

Internet writers Li Zhi, Jiang Lijun and Wang Xiaoning were all sentenced in 2003 to between four and 10 years in jail for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression – a right entrenched in international law and the Chinese constitution. In those three cases too, Yahoo! provided private email information to investigators and prosecutors.

Uphold covenant

China's vaguely-worded legal definition of what constitutes a “state secret” gives authorities broad discretion to detain people who peacefully exercise their right to the freedom of expression.

This is despite of the fact that China has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, meaning it intends to be bound by the spirit of the convenant, pending ratification, which includes the right to free speech.

That China has signed this covenant should be reason enough for Yahoo! to refrain from actively aiding authorities, based on its usual defence that it "must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based".

A poor performance

Aligning itself with the Government hasn’t helped Yahoo! become a successful business in China. After almost a decade there, it remains almost insignificant as a portal compared to local rivals such as Sina, Sohu and Baidu.

Yahoo! was chosen by only 5 per cent of users as their first choice search engine in 2006, placing it a very distant third place behind Baidu’s 62 per cent and Google’s 25 per cent. That’s despite the fact that the previous year Yahoo! spent US$1 billion on a 40 per cent take in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group – which now runs its China operations.

Alignment with Chinese authorities is also a short-sighted strategy. There is a strong political movement within China’s creative class for more freedom and standing with the Government on that issue may prove costly for corporations.

Documents revealed

Yahoo!'s conduct in China came under increased scrutiny when documents were released, in July last year, showing the company knew it was handling political cases when it passed authorities information about Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning. This lead to accusations that it misled lawmakers at a US congressional hearing in February 2006.

The pressure seems to be having a positive effect, however, as there are signs the company is realising it needs to address these issues.

In January last year, Amnesty International joined a multi-stakeholder initiative with academics, socially responsible investment firms, other experts and companies including Yahoo!. The initiative aims to develop a set of voluntary principles to promote and respect human rights on the Internet.

Amnesty International welcomes this move and hopes it will lead to further improvements to Yahoo!’s conduct in China and be a first step towards giving the world’s most populous country a more transparent society.

Human rights fund

Yahoo’s boss Jerry Yang, whose company once allegedly helped Chinese police nab and jail cyber dissidents, is today in the forefront of a global campaign to free those languishing in prison for expressing their views online.

He has established a "Yahoo! Human Rights Fund" to provide humanitarian and legal support to political dissidents who have been imprisoned for expressing their views online as well as support for their families.