Leader: No China options for global net giants

A number of prominent internet companies, including Google and Yahoo!, have come in for criticism over deciding to do business in China - and how they do that business.

So it is interesting that at a Yahoo! AGM this week shareholders voted against a proposition by the company to set up a human rights committee, with countries such as China very much in mind.

Yahoo! has famously been targeted for its part in the arrest of Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who authorities took a disliking to. The National Union of Journalists in the UK, for example, calls for members to boycott Yahoo! email accounts. And the US Congress, in dramatic hearings, famously grilled US companies for their approach to China.

Meanwhile Google's decision to allow certain websites to be blocked from China - such as those discussing the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre - sparked a furore way back when.

But this week's Yahoo! AGM proves what we knew around the time of the Google incident.

Google, not long before, had gone public. This publication put it to the company's management in the UK that it had no choice - if it hadn't pursued business in China then the markets would punish its share price. And to do business there it must abide by local laws.

The higher-ups at the internet giant ummed and ahhed on that one. But they should have just agreed.

This week shows how Yahoo! has tried to make up for some of its actions in China to date. But look where it gets them. Shareholders are more interested in hauling CEO Terry Semel over the coals for a lacklustre share price.

Imagine how that share price might have looked if it didn't have a presence in China while all its competitors do.