• November 15, 2007

Days after being criticized in Congress for cooperating with Chinese authorities, Yahoo agreed to pay an unspecified amount of damages to settle a lawsuit brought by families of two imprisoned journalists. The agreement, reached Tuesday, also calls for Yahoo to create a fund to "provide support to other political dissidents and their families."

Dissidents Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning were imprisoned after Yahoo revealed their identities to the Chinese authorities. In 2004, Shi Tao used an anonymous account from Yahoo to send a message to an overseas organization stating that the Chinese government had warned his newspaper against covering the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. The Chinese authorities obtained his identity from Yahoo and he was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison. Wang Xiaoning also was sentenced to 10 years in prison for posting a message calling for political reform to a Yahoo Group.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang testified before Congress last week that the company believes it can help improve conditions in China. "We know the presence of technology companies like Yahoo in markets abroad can have a transformative effect on people's lives and on local and national economies. Access to information has and will continue to change what people know about the world around them," he said.

--Wendy Davis