Technology Futures

Is Yahoo! Communist?

Submitted by acohill on Wed, 09/07/2005 - 08:46.

In a disturbing development, Yahoo! provided information to the communist Chinese government that was used to convict and imprison a journalist.

The Chinese government was angry because the journalist had merely expressed views about restrictions on the press in China that the government disliked.

This is so egregiously wrong that little needs to be said, other than it is clear that Yahoo! has absolutely no sense of right or wrong, and has decided that there is nothing more important than making money. Yahoo! cannot operate in China without the permission of the communist government, and so the company has decided to deal with the devil.

It also illustrates, unfortunately, my longstanding recommendation NOT to use free email and Web hosting services like Hotmail, Yahoo!, and Google. Your email becomes the property of someone else, and it can be used without your permission in legal proceedings.

If you need a personal or secondary email account, use a paid POP-based service where the mail is NOT stored on the service provider server after it has been downloaded. That is the only safe way to do it.