 Yahoo senior officers were criticised in a congressional hearing |
No details have been given of the settlement but Yahoo will be covering legal costs.
The case alleged that Yahoo had provided information to the Chinese government that had then been used to prosecute the dissidents.
Yahoo said it had to comply with Chinese laws to operate in the country.
A statement released by the World Organization for Human Rights USA, which brought the case, said Yahoo had decided to settle the case following criticism at a US Congressional hearing on 6 November.
'Inexcusably negligent'
A Congressional panel criticised Yahoo for not giving full details to its probe into the jailing of a reporter by Chinese authorities.
Yahoo had been "at best inexcusably negligent" and at worst "deceptive" in evidence given to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last year, the panel said.
One journalist cited in the case, Shi Tao, was tracked down and jailed for 10 years for subversion after Yahoo passed on his e-mail and IP address to officials.
He was convicted in 2004 of divulging state secrets after posting online a Chinese government order forbidding media organisations from marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Yahoo's original response to the lawsuit acknowledged releasing information to the Chinese government.
But it argued that there was little connection between the information the firm gave and the ensuing arrests and imprisonment of its users.
Michael Callahan, Yahoo's executive vice-president and general counsel, then told a congressional panel in February 2006 that he did not know why the Chinese authorities wanted to trace Shi Tao.
Last week, Mr Callahan wrote to the committee admitting that other Yahoo employees had a document saying it was to do with the "suspected illegal provision of state secrets".
Mr Callahan said the information only came to his attention months after he testified.
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2 comments:
It's quite terrible that this day and age, there are still "Corporate Judas" that are willing to rat out courageous jornalists for a few pieces of silver. I think Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's 40 Acres and a mule style reparations can be called justice. Jerry Yang is indeed a 21st Century Judas.
P.S. Please check out my friend's blogsite at http://bonesbrain.blogspot.com
Looks like the first one to comment on this blog had visited http://bonesbrain.blogspot.com. I liked bonesbrain blog because it is largely (I think) influenced by my 2 most favorite CDs the 1995 spoken word satire by Lydia Lunch and Exene Cervenka titled "Rude Hieroglyphics" and Queensrÿche's "Operation:mindcrime". If people like Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang can get away with "ratting out" on non-violent political dissidents, then we (bloggers?)could be facing a hard decision of sympathizing with violent extremists like al-Qaeda because expression by peaceful means can easilly be quelled by a 21st Century Judas like Jerry Yang. And by the way bonesbrain is the only blogsite that I know of where Filipino Muslims can peacefully express their opinions. This blog, in my opinion, has been very helpful -in it's small way- of stopping extremism / violent radicalism.
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