Innovation in Software

Right now, I’m quite an angry man. I’ve just read The GIFT of Giving at Yodel Anecdotal, where Michael Samway gives us an account of his trip to the State Department, to talk about Yahoo! is really ‘doing the right thing’. The only comment that he makes about the huge problem human rights protestors have with Yahoo! is this:

The tense moment on the first panel arrived when an Amnesty International representative opened his remarks by directly accusing Yahoo! and the other companies of cooperating with repressive regimes, including handing over information on political dissidents and limiting the free flow of information.

That’s undercutting it a bit. For those of you unaware of the story, you may want to catch up on some background reading

I’m a supporter of Amnesty International. I believe we need to be responsible with the data that we hold as companies working across international borders. Michael goes on to defend Yahoo! by stating that in the second panel:

… we each raised some of the vexing questions we all wrestle with in the field of business and human rights. Partly in response to comments from the first panel, I explained that we condemn the punishment of any activity internationally recognized as free expression and that the relationship between law enforcement entities and technology companies around the world is more complex than commonly understood. Rarely, if ever, will a company know the name, identity, or occupation of an individual connected to a user ID demanded by a law enforcement agency, whether in Munich, Mexico City, or Mumbai. What we do know is we protect user privacy through rigorous compliance practices and careful adherence to law governing government demands for user information.

Vexing questions, eh? The only ‘vex’ is “Do we sacrifice human rights and work with repressive regiemes in order to gain market share?” to which Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google all answer a resounding “YES PLEASE!”. As for not knowing all the details, Yahoo! know as well as I do that you don’t need all the details. An IP address is often more than enough to track down a user if you need to – I know this, because when I worked for a major multinational ISP, it was one of my jobs to work with the Police in order to catch paedophiles, and all I needed to help them get their man was an IP address and a date/time.

Yahoo’s atttitude is not atypical of the industry wanting to break into China right now, but it is typical of the flagrant disregard that they have for human beings, and certain values we consider in a civilised society to be universally true. They claim that they take a stand, but the moment that stand looks like China will lock them out of the market, they buckle. Their reasoning?

…the presence of companies like Yahoo! in markets abroad can have a transformative effect on peoples’ lives and on local and national economies. Information is power. Access to information, especially through the Internet, has changed what people know about the world around them and about events, people, and issues that directly impact their lives day-to-day. People know more about local public health issues, environmental causes, politics, consumer choices, and job opportunities. They communicate and interact like never before with family, friends, neighbors, and people locally, regionally, and even globally with similar interests. And the Internet drives innovation across sectors, including in science, medicine, business, and journalism to name a few.

That would be true, but for one simple fact. The information Yahoo shows to their Chinese audience is regulated in its entirety by the Chinese government, and the moment there is something truly powerful on the net – say, a website suggesting democracy would be a better way to run the World’s most populous nation – Yahoo! calmly assist the Chinese government in making sure nobody sees it, and if the poster of the content was using a Yahoo! mail account, well here, have the IP address they last used when logging in to check their mail, our pleasure.

What really sickens me about this, is Yahoo! just refuses to accept they’re doing anything morally objectionable. They just sit around humming and hawwing and making noises of “difficult questions… it’s a tough one to call… lot of factors to consider…” without once stopping, and thinking to themselves “We’re responsible for people being persecuted, jailed and possibly tortured”, and doing the one thing that any civilised human would do: get the hell out of Dodge.

I doubt my comment on that post making a direct attack will ever get approved, so I’ll just post it here:

I’ll bet a large wedge of cash that this never gets approved, but if somebody at Yahoo! reads this and tries to change internal policy, that would be “nice”

I’m glad you had a nice day out, and that you think Yahoo! is doing something important in helping people change their view of the World.

It doesn’t, however, change the fact that Yahoo! are responsible for handing over information on several dozen democratic reformers in China, who are now rotting to death in jail.

The line “we were just complying with a legitimate governmental request” doesn’t cut it – you guys know you were in the wrong to do it, but you don’t care about doing wrong as long as you are able to keep, and grow, market share.

Yahoo! in China is no different to IBM in Nazi Germany – “we’re not involved, we’re just doing business, our shareholders expect it of us” – but history will judge that Yahoo! were involved in a disgusting chapter of Chinese history and didn’t do a thing to get in the way if it meant it would hurt the bottom line.

I hope you enjoy more cups of coffee with important people, but if you want to make a difference, you have to club together with the rest of civilised society and make a stand that you’re not going to hand over data on people who just want to be able to vote – and take the consequences of loosing market share, or being thrown out of the market. Your shareholders will have more belief in you for doing the right thing, then they will for you doing anything to make a buck.

Until then, I, and many others like me, refuse to use Yahoo! services of any form unless I have no choice. As people hear what it is you guys have done in the past, our numbers will grow. I only hope one day you will realise that helping the Chinese government find and torture democratic ‘dissidents’ hurts your share price more than not being in China.

As ever, opinion and thoughts invited in the comments.