Chief executive Jerry Yang said his firm had always been open with Congress and that it was “fully committed to protecting human rights”.
Mr Callahan said then that he did not know why the Chinese authorities wanted to trace Shi Tao – who was jailed for 10 years – but it has since emerged that other Yahoo employees had a document stating it was to do with the “suspected illegal provision of state secrets”.
“Yahoo claims that this is just one big misunderstanding,” Mr Lantos said.
This is one funny article. If you didn’t already know, Yahoo recently gave information to Chinese officials leading to the arrest of Shi Tao, and jailed 10 years for sending an email to a foreign website, warning journalists not to cover the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2004.
Shi Tao’s mother who was present at the hearing only received a silent nod from Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo and Michael Callahan, execute vice-president of Yahoo.
I guess Shi Tao’s mother can be comforted from Yahoo’s “I didn’t know” defence which lead to her son’s jail term, with a silent nod.
At least offer her monetary compensation, gosh. Oh wait, Google’s owning you at the moment. Gotta save every penny.