Boo Yahoo!

"To be doing business in China or anywhere else in the world we have to comply with local law."

And that's all that Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang has to say on the subject of becoming an informant of the Chinese government. That his actions support human right violations, and led to a 10-year improsonment term for a journalist is not something he is much bothered about. So long as he is acting 'legally', he is not worried about being right or ethical. The blindfolding, after all, ought to serve him well in making riches from the Chinese market.

Which leads me to the rhetorical question that a letter to the editor in the South China Morning Post asked recently: would Yahoo have been as willing an informant on Jews in the Germany of 1930s has it existed then?

Well, if IBM didn't have a problem under those circumstances, I can wager Yahoo would have no qualms either. After all, as they seem to think, what are a million lives or so against millions of dollars?

Laws and Governments are NOT valid excuses for despicable actions. And if Yahoo does not have the guts to defy the Chinese government, or finds itself too feeble to take a moral stand, it should not be doing be doing business there in the first place.