We've all seen the news stories recently about how Yahoo! has reportedly contributed information which led to the incarceration of  some Chinese Internet users by the Chinese government. I have held off posting about this since there is so much clarity needed before an opinion can be formed, at least for me.

What I do find worthwhile to hold onto is this snippet from the above news story link:

Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako told AFP that since October 2005, Yahoo's service in mainland China had been operated and managed by a local firm named Alibaba under a long-term strategic partnership.

So Yahoo! has a partner in China which is operating Yahoo!'s service for them there. It could reasonably be supposed that Alibaba's owners, staff and their families are bound by the laws in China. That would make this far less newsworthy as a story about a Chinese company bowing to the Chinese government.

I think Reporters without Borders saw the Yahoo! brand and seized an opportunity to bring the lack of democracy in China home to us on it.  Whether they knew the Chinese company operating under the brand was a Chinese company is moot.  It was an excellent opportunity to shine a light on this situation and the brand remains the same either way.

Will Yahoo! Inc. need to break from their partner, Alibaba?  It's an option.  Doing so would mean either shutting down Yahoo! services in China or having to deal directly with the Chinese government from a position of a US company operating in China since any other local strategic partner will have the same dilemma.

But as I type this I have to wonder if I am just stirring the pot with my "what if"'s and my geocentric perception of what it's like in China these days.  I really can't imagine.  Nor can I imagine what it's like to try and operate an Internet services company in a country with a censoring regime.


2/12/06 UPDATE: I can't speak for the author's expertise, but at face value this post looks like a comprehensive overview of the situation.