14 DAY TRIAL // Three years ago, Shi Tao, a journalist of Contemporary Business News in China was arrested by the Chinese police after the Sunnyvale giant Yahoo provided private information about him including IP address or email accounts. Today, Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said for Reuters that he prepared a meeting on November 6 with the Yahoo representatives in order to talk about the case because it seems like the company's employees provided "false information". According to the same source, Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan are the only ones invited to the meeting.
"We want to clarify how that happened, and to hold the company to account for its actions both before and after its testimony proved untrue. And we want to examine what steps the company has taken since then to protect the privacy rights of its users in China," Tom Lantos said for Reuters.
"As the committee well knows from repeated meetings and conversations, Yahoo representatives were truthful with the committee. This issue revolves around a genuine disagreement with the committee over the information provided," Yahoo spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler replied according to the same source.
These are pretty serious accusations because they might have an important impact over the Yahoo image since the officials accused the Sunnyvale company of providing false information about the users. However, Yahoo has an extremely difficult position because no matter what it decides to do, it receives somebody's criticism.
First of all, it attracted consumers' criticism because it provided private information about the Chinese user which led to his arrest. On the other side, it can't refuse authorities' requests because it would infringe the laws and obviously it may attract tougher punishments. Anyway, Yahoo struggled to collaborate with lots of organizations in China, a country where the censorship and the restrictions are applied over almost any kind of content which might represent an offense for the authorities.