Yahoo! 'helped China jail journalist for state secret leak'

A French media watchdog group claimed on Tuesday that Yahoo! provided information which helped Chinese officials convict a journalist accused of leaking state secrets.

Shi Tao, a 37-year-old writer for the Dangdai Shang Bao (Contemporary Business News), was sentenced in April to 10 years in prison, Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. He was convicted of sending to foreign websites a "top secret" government message that had been sent to his newspaper.

The international watchdog organisation said recently translated court papers revealed Yahoo! Holdings in Hong Kong provided Chinese investigators with detailed information that helped them link Shi's personal email account and a specific message containing the "state secret" to the IP address of his computer.

The state secret was a message to Shi's newspaper warning journalists of the dangers associated with dissidents returning to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, according to the group. Shi admitted sending the email but disputed whether it was a secret document.

Reporters Without Borders said in its statement: "We already knew that Yahoo! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well."

A Yahoo! spokesperson said the Sunnyvale, California-based company is looking into the charges but could not immediately comment.

The harsh criticism comes as Yahoo! and rivals Google and Microsoft are engaged in a high-stakes fight to expand into the lucrative Chinese marketplace.

Just last month, Yahoo! paid $1bn for a 40 per cent stake in Alibaba.com, which many consider to be the largest ecommerce company in China. Meanwhile, Google and Microsoft are fighting in a Washington state court over the employment of Kai-Fu Lee, a former Microsoft employee who helped the software giant build up its Chinese offices. Google hopes Lee will help expand its presence in China as well.

Jim Kerstetter writes for CNET News.com