This & That, Ceci et Cela

“Yahoo has suffered a good deal of opprobrium since it was revealed last month that, when government officials came calling, the company’s Hong Kong division simply surrendered information on a Chinese citizen who had presumably sought refuge, anonymity and a bit of freedom in the bosom of a Yahoo e-mail address: huoyan1989@yahoo.com.cn.
Shi Tao, the journalist using that address, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for sharing with foreigners a message that his newspaper had received from Chinese authorities, warning it not to overplay the 15th anniversary in June of the killing of pro-democracy demonstrators near Tiananmen Square. Yahoo, meanwhile, gets to keep its piece of the gigantic China pie, insisting like most Western companies doing business there that it must abide by the laws of countries in which it operates.”

Well, silly us for thinking it was ever about anything else but the bottom line! Thanks for the reminder.