After a legal battle lasting eight years, the American technology company Yahoo recently reached a settlement with several Chinese dissidents, agreeing to pay a total of $5.425 million in compensation. This settlement is intended to redress Yahoo’s past cooperation with the Chinese authorities in handing over user data, which led to political persecution incidents, as well as issues related to the mismanagement of subsequent compensation funds.
In 2004, Chinese journalist Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison for using Yahoo email to send summaries of internal Chinese Communist Party documents to overseas media. Similarly, engineer Wang Xiaoning was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for posting pro-democracy reform messages in a Yahoo group. These cases sparked strong international condemnation of Yahoo’s assistance in suppressing freedom of speech by the Chinese government.
In response to pressure, Yahoo established the “Yahoo Human Rights Fund” (YHRF) in 2007, allocating $17.3 million to assist victims. However, after the fund was handed over to the Laogai Research Foundation, it was accused of embezzling a large amount of funds, with only about $650,000 actually being used for victim assistance, representing less than 4% of the total amount.
In 2017, six dissidents who had been imprisoned for their speech filed a lawsuit against Yahoo, the Laogai Research Foundation, and their cooperating law firm Impresa Legal Group, alleging that Yahoo had failed to properly supervise and should bear joint compensation liability.
According to the technology journal “MIT Technology Review,” Yahoo stated in the latest settlement agreement that it will “provide humanitarian aid to individuals who have been imprisoned in China for exercising their right to freedom of speech, regardless of whether they are in China or from China.”
Under the settlement agreement, five of the six plaintiffs will each receive $50,000, while the lead plaintiff will receive $55,000 in compensation. At least $3 million will be used to establish a new fund to be managed by the non-profit organization “Humanitarian China,” specifically to support victims persecuted in China for their freedom of speech. “Humanitarian China,” founded in 2004 by participants in the 1989 democracy movement, has provided over $2 million in aid to Chinese dissidents and their families in the past.
While the details of the agreement cannot be publicly disclosed, the representing lawyers emphasized that this settlement will bring long-overdue justice to the victims. One of the plaintiffs, Xu Wanping, stated that many political prisoners face difficulties in life after their release, and restarting the fund would hold significant meaning for those involved.
Yahoo completely withdrew from the Chinese market in 2021. This settlement is seen by the public as a compensation for its past actions and underscores the undeniable ethical responsibility of technology companies in the global market.