INTERNET - Yahoo's defense: It obeyed China law - Activists sued the firm for disclosures that led to arrests of dissidents.
Yahoo Inc. on Monday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought against the Internet company by civil rights advocates, arguing that it had become unfairly ensnared in a political debate over free speech in China.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company is fighting efforts to hold it accountable for the imprisonment and alleged torture of two Chinese citizens after it disclosed their identities to government officials. Yahoo says its Chinese subsidiaries did so to comply with the Chinese government's rules.
Yahoo's predicament illustrates the difficulty many Internet companies face in expanding to China. Essentially, they are information brokers in a country that tightly limits the spread of information.
"China is going to go from being a low-cost producer to being a demand engine for the global economy," said Geoffrey Garrett, president of the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles. "American firms are finding that to sell in China, you need to be in China. . . . The Chinese government still controls the economy, [so] you have to play by the government's rules."
In a 40-page defense filed in Oakland on Monday, Yahoo argued that American courts were not the place to air political grievances against the Chinese government.
"This is a political and diplomatic issue, not a legal one," Yahoo spokeswoman Kelley Benander said. "The real issue here is the plaintiffs' outrage at the behavior and laws of the Chinese government. The U.S. court system is not the forum for addressing these political concerns."
The World Organization for Human Rights USA filed the lawsuit in April on behalf of Wang Xiaoning, who was apprehended in 2002, and his wife, Yu Ling. Wang is serving a 10-year prison sentence, the group said, for advocating democratic reform in articles circulated on the Internet. It later added journalist Shi Tao, who is serving a 10-year sentence after being detained in 2004. The suit said he had detailed government restrictions imposed on journalists in connection with the 15-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The suit alleges that these people -- and others who have yet to be identified -- were tortured or subjected to inhumane treatment at the hands of Chinese authorities because of information that Yahoo Hong Kong and Yahoo China provided to the government. In 2005, a Chinese company, Alibaba.com, acquired most of Yahoo China. Yahoo retains a minority stake.
