Yahoo and Google are cooperating with Chinese authorities in their clampdown on
“dissidents”, and also in their censorship of the internet.
For some Microsoft has treated any attempt to create a blog with the words
democracy or freedom in its title in the same way as an attempt to create a blog
with obscene words in the title — at least if you are in China and you use the
Chinese MSN portal. Peacefire
has a way around this if you happen to find yourself
in this predicament, by the way.
Similarly Google (proving that power corrupts, IMO), cooperates with the
Chinese authorities in censoring the internet, if your IP address marks you as
coming from China.
Now in a more serious development, it appears
that Yahoo has provided information to the Chinese authorities which has led to
the arrest of one journalist – Shi Tao, who has been given a ten year prison term.