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Yahoo Quickly Settles Lawsuit Over Jailed Chinese Journalist
from the interesting-timing dept
While the legal claim might be shaky, Yahoo must have realized that it was losing badly in the court of public opinion on the question of whether or not it had helped China jail a local journalist for being critical of the government. It can't help when Congress accuses you of lying and calls you a "moral pygmy." So it should come as no surprise that the company has quickly worked out a settlement in the lawsuits filed by families of the jailed dissidents. It probably didn't take Yahoo execs all that long to do the math on what sort of brand damage it would do to have a long, drawn out courtroom battle on the topic. We'll just assume that the timing, on the same day that Yahoo announces an expansion of its mobile search efforts in Asia is merely a coincidence. Either way, hopefully this has other companies thinking twice before taking part in activities that, while legal overseas, may get them in hot water back home.
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"Either way, hopefully this has other companies thinking twice before ..."
Not really; there really hasn't been much bad publicity beyond the communities that take and interest (like this one) assuming no further bad publicity the precendent has been set, suck up to the authorities in the country that's important for business, quickly settle any legal stuff to avoid publicity and ... you win and get to keep expandig your operations.
That's the American way.
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Bad press might be more widespread than ya think
"Not really; there really hasn't been much bad publicity beyond the communities that take and interest "
Eh, my parents heard about it and they dont have much interest in the tech community
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Its not just money
There was a picture of Yang testifying why his company
did this to the users of their email.
The political prisoner's weeping mother was seated right behind him. You could see the burning feelings of shame in
his face. That picture was in the front pages of every major
news outlet's business section or front page.
If you were a CEO, would you want to put yourself in that
position?
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