I put this in here because it's about Yahoo and it's search engine being used to give out personal information, in this case to China resulting in journaliists being jailed. Yahoo is playing the Worlds big brother, this is worse than phone tapping, at least you have to have a warrant to do that so we do retain some rights. Another point is Yahoo is overstepping the boundaries by interfering in peoples rights and business in foreign countries. One Chinese blogger stays on the move, uses multiple blogs, and says the demand for non-corrupt political officials is the real foe of censorship. Li Xinde has no First Amendment to protect him as an investigative reporter in China. But he does have a knack for finding stories of corruption and abuse that make their way even to state-run media outlets, Reuters reported. "I can still spread news across the whole country in just 10 minutes, while the propaganda officials are still wondering what to do," Li told Reuters. He described how he has to work to avoid arrest, by shuttling around to different Internet bars in rural China: "It's what Chairman Mao called sparrow tactics. You stay small and independent, you move around a lot, and you choose when to strike and when to run." Those strikes have taken down a corrupt deputy mayor in one province, while another claimed a businessman met a brutal death while held in official custody. His freedom has become more difficult to maintain over the past two years, the article noted. Though he isn't famous, he has built enough of a reputation that he is something of a marked man. Still, he has reason to fear. Evidence prosecutors obtained from Yahoo in China has contributed to the jailings of two journalists, and others who have published stories on the Internet also languish in prison, the report said. Li said Chinese people's demands for clean, accountable officials, and their salacious curiosity about bad ones, were the censors' ultimate enemy.
I agree this is an issue that has been ongoing. Yahoo has two choices in the matter with China: 1. Do not comply with the demands of the government and stop doing business there. 2. or comply and give the information that is requested. Quite a bad situation for both the writer and the company. The censorship that is occuring in China is reminiscent of the old days of the Soviet Union. The Chinese can only hope that eventually the old communist hard liners will lose power to more open minded younger politicians who see the real value of true freedom.