I Do Not (and Will Not) Yahoo!

…. and I encourage others to stop using Yahoo! and Yahoo!- related resources. Click “more” to see why. This post, created at 10:40 a.m. on Sept. 8, will stay at the top through the weekend.

Banner immediately below is by BizzyBlog. Spanish and English Banners at Updates 3 and 5 are by Argentine blogger Rubén Benedetti at BlogBis (click link at post to find English banner); both may be freely distributed.
(Hat tips for original news: Global Voices Online, through Instapundit, Roger Simon, and RConversation)

Yes, there are plenty of bad actors in the American high-tech sellout of the Chinese people and their aspirations for freedom (commented on previously here [1st item], here [1st item], and in the body of several other China-related posts).

But Yahoo! is the first company I know of that has actively aided and abetted the Chinese police state in an actual prosecution and jailing of a reporter (bolds are mine):

Information supplied by Yahoo! helped journalist Shi Tao get 10 years in prison

The text of the verdict in the case of journalist Shi Tao - sentenced in April to 10 years in prison for “divulging state secrets abroad” - shows that Yahoo! Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. provided China’s state security authorities with details that helped to identify and convict him, Reporters Without Borders said today.

“We already knew that Yahoo! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well,” the press freedom organisation said.

“Yahoo! obviously complied with requests from the Chinese authorities to furnish information regarding an IP address that linked Shi Tao to materials posted online, and the company will yet again simply state that they just conform to the laws of the countries in which they operate,” the organisation said. “But does the fact that this corporation operates under Chinese law free it from all ethical considerations ? How far will it go to please Beijing?”

Reporters Without Borders added: “Information supplied by Yahoo! led to the conviction of a good journalist who has paid dearly for trying to get the news out. It is one thing to turn a blind eye to the Chinese government’s abuses and it is quite another thing to collaborate.”

Because of the above, I have removed this site’s Yahoo! Finance link, and will studiously try to avoid all future visits to Yahoo! and Yahoo!-affiliated sites. I encourage other blogs and readers to take similar appropriate actions. So that I and other sympathetic readers can avoid actions that directly or indirectly support Yahoo!, any information about Yahoo!-owned entities that do not use the Yahoo! name would also be welcome.

I have also used my minimal drawing “skills” to create the graphic at the top of this post, which I plan to place prominently and permanently (as long as Yahoo! remains a Chinese police state collaborator) somewhere in the opening screen.

Any reader who wishes can copy the graphic to his/her blog site, forum post, or anywhere else you might find posting it useful. Please–Copy the graphic over to your web host and DON’T hotlink to me.

Avoiding the use of Yahoo! and telling readers why would seem to be something bloggers (and users) of all political persuasions can agree on. If not, I’d sure like to hear someone tell me why.
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UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a pretty good editorial on the subject today, but with a glaring weakness:

The silver lining is that even if these companies fail to heed the calls of morality, the final verdict may come from the Chinese customers themselves. As Internet companies compete for the loyalty of China’s 100 million Internet users, they’ll likely discover that watered-down information simply doesn’t sell. And if Yahoo! won’t live up to its self-professed responsibility to maintain customers “loyalty and trust,” those same customers may abandon the company when they discover that their trust has been betrayed.

A pleasant thought, but what nonwatered-down alternative do users have in China?

UPDATE 2: There’s obviously a lot of competing news, but it appears that Mainstream Media coverage is pretty decent at this point. Google News has 351 stories as of 2PM today (September 8th) here is one of them. Whether the story gets the prominence it would appear to deserve is a still-open matter.

UPDATE 3: (HT Atlas Shrugs) This may be an idea that catches on internationally. Argentine blogger BlogBis has produced the following outstanding image:

My rusty Spanish is good enough to translate the advisory at the site which says “Como siempre, el banner es de libre disponibilidad,” which means “As always, the banner is for free distribution.”

Oh, and the graphic itself says “Yahoo! Not only is it a search engine, it is also an informer.” Ouch.

UPDATE 4: RConversation tells us of the “crime Shi Tao committed: “According to Shi Tao’s summary, the Propaganda Dept. circular includes the following instruction to Chinese editors and reporters: ‘pay attention to any liaison between overseas democratic elements and individual media editors and reporters inside China. If anything is discovered, it is must be reported immediately.’ For transmitting this, plus a very general list of measures the government was taking to crack down on dissident speech and prevent unrest, Shi Tao got 10 years in jail.”

UPDATE 5: Mr. Benedetti has created an English version of the graphic:

UPDATE 6: This RConversation commenter notes that the Flickr picture posting resource is “under the Yahoo! umbrella.”