China Tells Yahoo All Your Drafts Are Belong To Us
from the who-needs-a-warrant-when-you're-so-cooperative dept
Yahoo has again turned over information to the Chinese government that lead to a user being jailed, a human rights group says, for the third time. What makes this case a little different from earlier cases of Yahoo acceding to the Chinese is that Yahoo turned over a draft email to the authorities, not one that had been sent or received. While it's hardly surprising that Chinese authorities would lay claim to anything on a server of an Internet company operating in their country, the twist that it was a draft is slightly interesting, if for no other reason than many people's perception that a draft might be more private than something they actually send out. Also, the fact that the government knew to request the draft would indicate that they'd been surveilling the user for some time -- again, not a surprise, but perhaps indicative of the degree to which Yahoo cooperates. These sorts of issues are becoming more commonplace, as companies don't seem to have too many qualms about going along with the government to maintain their piece of the Chinese market. There's been a lot of posturing about this, but at what point -- if ever -- will the decisions to play ball with the repressive regime come back to haunt them?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Repression
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Government always watches YOU
Oh, by the way, they can trace my IP right now and AT AND T will give them any information they want.
Oh, I am not a target because I know nothing about the government, but I do see gas price is increasing, does that tell you anything?
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Government always watches YOU
Oh, by the way, they can trace my IP right now and AT AND T will give them any information they want.
Oh, I am not a target because I know nothing about the government, but I do see gas price is increasing, does that tell you anything?
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Sheesh...
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Draft is always a bad word...
Then GMail does the "auto-save to draft" thing. If you've been typing more than a minute or so, it will helpfully save your work as a draft, just in case your browser dies... you won't need to retype much of what you've written.
I thought the accepted norm with email is that anything sent via email has all the privacy of a postcard. With that mindset, people forwarding off messages that they received (embarrassing the sender) are justified.
However, the "draft" part of this is scary. That little extra feature that your web-mail app is giving you can be used against you in a court of law. No Miranda warning... nothing. Type something, go to jail. Game over.
EMail that was never even sent is now something that your Web mail supplier can give to other people.
Now, I don't think that China is in any way a bastion of civil liberties, but what China can get away with, any other country will get away with. And that includes a country that has just found out that its highest executive considers himself above the law and will invade the privacy of its country's citizens without due process.
This is scary stuff.
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They aren't the only ones...
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Disgusting
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yes..
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Google on the other hand is usually reluctant to give such information to authorities.
PS. The phrase "all your base are belongs to us" is actually from a Japanese game, not Chinese.
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Ah-So!
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The Devil made me sign up for Yahoo!
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Re: The Devil made me sign up for Yahoo!
Also note that some of the circumstances from the Privacy Policy were left out.
~~ America: Proudly from it, proudly fighting for it!
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Re: The Devil made me sign up for Yahoo!
The point is that Yahoo along with just about everybody else I know will do whatever is demanded of them if it is presented to them as a law.
Just because something is a law does not make it ethical or right or even legal. We have seen much evidence of this in America the past couple of years with many special interest creating situations that the hghest courts have to deal with..
Perhaps if people were to think more and question more and stand up and say no to these folk who think they can run our lives then this would be slowed down and/or even stopped.
Now i am not suggesting that you sholesale break the law no matter where you are.... however it is your right and more importantly, your responsibility to inform your leaders what you will and will not tolerate. And if they do not comply and you live in a republic or demoractic country then by all means use whatever leagl pressure (
and trust me, there are many pressures you can apply ) to force your government to comply with the wants of the people who elected them.
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Re: Re: The Devil made me sign up for Yahoo!
Erm...
le-gal (n.)
1. Of, relating to, or concerned with law: legal papers.
2a.Authorized by or based on law: a legal right.
2b.Established by law; statutory: the legal owner.
3. In conformity with or permitted by law: legal business operations.
4. Recognized or enforced by law rather than by equity.
5. In terms of or created by the law: a legal offense.
6. Applicable to or characteristic of attorneys or their profession.
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Re: The Devil made me sign up for Yahoo!
The fact is, if Yahoo had a real aversion to doing these kinds of things, they could just not do business in China. But they are doing business there, knowing full what it will entail. So they have no excuse.
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Re: Re: The Devil made me sign up for Yahoo!
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Shame on China!
Shame on China!
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Protest China's Hu visiting US
Human has no rights under communist China and Yahoo is cooperating with them.
Say NO to China's leader Hu, now is in Washington DC.
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Kill a commie for mommy
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Shame on you, Yahoo!
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Yahoosux
If they don't comply with local laws, they get thrown out of China, maybe a few executives get thrown in jail and Yahoo servers get confiscated. People who write on China Yahoo or any other China e-mail provider know the risk they run.
Americans should stop thinking they are right and everybody else who doesn't agree with them is wrong. The mere presence of Yahoo and other Western corporations in China will provide more impetus to providing personal freedoms, but it will take time.
The China of 20 years ago and that of today is remarkably different. More positive changes will happen with time. Face-to-face confrontation is not the way to help make this happen, especially when you know it's a losing game for the Western entities.
/
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Re: Yahoosux
If nobody believed they were right, nothing would ever get done. ...And there is no single opinion that ALL Americans have. Some Americans have posted that Yahoo is right, some have posted that it is wrong. Each person posting believes they are right.
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Re: Re: Yahoosux
Believing you are right and knowing you are is different. To know you are right, you have to approach every different opinion with impartiality. I believe what he criticized is the automatic dismissal of different opinions by many people.
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Re: Yahoosux
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Re: Re: Yahoosux
Oh! I take it you guys (as a matter of principle) don't buy any products from China because many of these products are produced in Chinese owned work farms made up mostly of young women (with NO worker rights of any kind). They work 12 to 18 hour days at abysmal wages. These people generally live far from their homes in dilapidated collective dorms of 16 or so people per room. Once the workers get a little older (no more than 30 years of age) and can't keep up with the daily quota they are required to maintain, they are fired and forced to find their own way back home. Let's not even mentioned the pirated software or false designer clothing, etc. that we don't buy.
You might feel better at buying American and other Western corporation products made in China as working conditions and pay are much better in these modern factories and offices.
These companies ARE having a positive impact upon the Chinese people and their government. But no, let's take these corporation out of China too, since we don't agree with how the Chinese government oppresses its people. Heaven forbid these Western companies might have to obey local laws and cooperate with the Chinese government in some distasteful act.
It's a matter of principle, you know. Nothing is more important than holding to our American/Christian principles regardless of who or how they impact people far, far away.
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Yahoo draft e-mail
However I have to say that anyone who is thinking thoughts that could get them into trouble, in a country where people have already been arrested using evidence gathered from Yahoo, has to be pretty stupid if they then use Yahoo for e-mail whether they sent it or just typed it.
Wake up and smell the coffee Chinese disidents. If you want to criticise your regime don't use Yahoo to do it.
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Fighting for what's right isn't always easy
No one can stop china but their own people. Once the Chinese people push back against a represive Gov't then there may be change. I'm not syaing it is simple. The Communists have a way of controlling almost everyone.
It's just a huge pyramid scheme. Only instead of exploiting the people below you in the pyramid for money you are oppressing them into submission. Everyone is watching everyone else in they hopes that they can turn them in and move up the pyramid.
I do believe that as capitalism pushes into China it will become more difficult for the Gov't to oppress. The open market will also lead to open discussions. Not only of how to get more money(Everyone is greedy) but also how to live freely.
I don't think a Gov't should put someone in jail (or worse) for wanting or even trying to get a Gov't official booted. Now if you talk about killing someone, yeah you should be in jail, I don't think any one peson should decide who lives or dies.
And has anyone taken the time to check over Google's(MSN,AOL, other ISP/E-mail service) TOA to see if the Lawyers put the same CMA statement in it?
Well enough of this guard bum's ranting. One more quick thing though I am keeping Yahoo!, I have agreed to the TOA and will accept the consequences. I don't have anything to hide from the Gov't. There's not much they don't already know since I'm Military :)
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RE: China Tells Yahoo All Your Drafts Are Belong T
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Re: RE: China Tells Yahoo All Your Drafts Are Belo
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If a US district attorney gets a court ordered warrant for email, a company must turn it over, whether they want to or not, at least, if that person is under US jurisdiction.
Honestly, if they are operating in China, how can they ignore government orders on their own citizens and expect to not be blocked by China's firewall.
Where the blame goes is at companies who have made China a market in the first place. Companies should now see that there is only one solution if they don't want to be censorship lapdogs of totalitarianism, and that's to pull out. It all comes down to greed. And, even Google cannot ignore it. If one pulls out, the other two will crush them (MSN, Yahoo, Google). They have to get together and decide to pull out. However, I don't see MSN ever having a conscience, and Yahoo's is almost non-existant.
At this point, I pity Google, who's hand is forced here (at least they aren't turning over emails and are even fighting US attorneys who try to get at user data). Ideology by leaving China would put them at a great disadvantage by losing the world's second biggest net market.
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Easy Now
Let's remember. The Yahoo! draft email episode happened in 2003. Gmail didn't even publicly exist yet. Google just recently put their servers in China.
The Google/China relationship is young and Google so far has disappointed most with their Chinese Communist-sensitive search results.
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No Comment
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