Fergie's Tech Blog

Fresh U.S. Outrage at Yahoo! Ahead of China Hearings

A Reuters newswire article by Joel Rothstein and Eric Auchard, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

U.S. Internet companies faced fresh bipartisan criticism in the Congress on Thursday following heightened controversy over Yahoo Inc.'s alleged role in the Chinese government's eight-year prison sentence against a second dissident.

"I don't like any American company ratting out a citizen for speaking out against their government," Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat and member of the House Human Rights Subcommittee, told Reuters on Thursday.

"This is the tip of the iceberg of a very oppressive regime that we have almost become accustomed to America," Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican and chairman of the House Human Rights Subcommittee, told Reuters.

The storm over Western media companies' compliance with China's policies comes before next week's hearing by Smith's committee where lawmakers from both parties are expected to grill representatives from Yahoo, Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc..

"There are probably others (dissidents) that we need to find out about. We are going to make sure it doesn't get swept under the rug," Smith said.

posted by Fergie @ 2/09/2006 05:45:00 PM