Yahoo gets in the Secret Police Business

[Kuciwalker]

That's Aggie's trick.

[pchang]

anyway

my real point here is that we cannot expect corporations to act on anything other than their bottom line. Corporations have no conscience. If we expect them to, we will be disappointed every time.

[Drake Tungsten]

I don't know if they always act on their bottom line. The problem is that the potential profits to be made in China are so huge that it really tests the ethics of foreign corporations doing business there. I wouldn't expect Yahoo to sell out a journalist at the behest of the Yemeni government, for example, but I would be surprised if they didn't do such a thing in China. Access to the Chinese market is just too important to most corporations, leading them to engage in some rather despicable actions in order to stay on the good side of the Chinese leadership.

[Barinthus]

*nod* Like those news stories about foreign companies accepting bribes since it's a normal way of doing business in China and it's expected.

[Drake Tungsten]

And it's not just corporations that are being tempted to engage in questionable behavior in order to get a piece of the action in a booming China. Governments are being tempted as well, as demonstrated by the near-lifting of the arms embargo on China by the EU.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
So, what's the hubba hubba here?

Even RIAA asked ISPs in the US to turn over information to help with investigations. The FBI and CIA no doubt have done the same.

Hey we're trying to protect you UR. We're not the ones who are going to get swept up in some half-assed quasi-legal abuse of power by the communist party. It will instead be educated fairly liberal Chinese people who spend a lot of their time debating all sorts of issues in an open manner on foreign web sites.