Wife of Chinese Dissident to Sue Yahoo for Snitching

This is, I believe, the fourth time Yahoo has been implicated in the jailing of a Chinese intellectual. It's scary to think Yahoo will so readily disclose its users private information, but on the other hand - they have no real obligation not to do so, either. This case is especially interesting in light of this month's New York Magazine editorial on how no one actually owns their privacy anymore (as if we haven't all known that for years... infact, I remember reading a Calvin and Hobbs comic about that when I was a child).

Anyway, here's the article, (via Boing Boing and Digital Chonsunilbo)

The wife of a Chinese dissident jailed for publishing articles on the Internet says she plans to sue U.S.-based Internet company Yahoo for allegedly helping to put her husband in jail in China.

Speaking with VOA's Mandarin Service Wednesday after arriving in Washington, Yu Ling said Chinese police arrested her husband, Wang Xiaoning, partly because Yahoo's Hong Kong office gave Chinese authorities information about his e-mail accounts.

Yu Ling said she has come to the United States to sue the company for damages and to demand an apology.

In 2003, Wang was sentenced to 10 years in prison for publishing what China's government called "subversive" articles on the Internet.

In recent years, human rights groups have accused Yahoo of providing Chinese authorities with information that has led to the imprisonment of several dissidents.

Yahoo and other Internet companies say they have to obey Chinese laws to do business there. They also say that their operations in China benefit millions of people who otherwise would have no Internet access.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders says China has imprisoned at least 50 individuals, including Wang Xiaoning, for their activities on the Internet.

VOA News