Yahoo on hot seat over China

Congress took aim at Yahoo last week over its alleged collaboration with a communist regime. The issue was hot: Should a global Internet company turn over information about a Chinese dissident? The information resulted in the jailing of a Chinese journalist for 10 years. It included emails about pro-democratic efforts, and it was part of the Chinese case against the journalist. ''While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies,'' House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, said angrily after hearing testimony from Yahoo's chief executive Jerry Yang and general counsel Michael Callahan. Callahan said that in going into future markets such as Vietnam, ''I would hope to have a structure in place...[so] that we would be able to resist those demands.'' It is a lesson that other companies need to learn as they extend their reach globally and face legal demands from foreign governments. What does the future hold as technology becomes part of the international marketplace, and companies do not know exactly what they face from hostile governments?

For more about Yahoo's dilemma:
- See the New York Times article