Oh is that the only reason? Not sure if I can give you "benefits of the doubt" though, your perchant for China-bashing is too easy to be ignored. Wrong and wrong again. IBM formed strategic alliance with Nazi Germany, starting in 1933 immediately following Hitler's control of power and continuing well into WWII. The massive and complex task of identifying and locating millions of European Jews was so monumental that it could not be possibily done efficiently without the IBM's Hollerith punch card technology - the equivalent of a computer in the 1930's. IBM and its German subsidiary custom-designed complex algorithms and constantly updated and automated their systems to anticipate every need of the Third Reich to eliminate Jews, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor, and ultimately, the annihilation of their entire race. What has Yahoo done? Did it form strategic alliance with PRC to identify and locate the leakers of "state secrets"? Did Yahoo custom-design solutions for PRC to automate the persecution of political dissidents? Did Yahoo foresee it will make profits in China because it would be used by PRC as a political tool? Blast PRC at every possible turn if you wish. Resorting to perverted logic and rhetorical exaggeration to advance your political agenda isn't particularly helpful to convince people. Printing some Chinese characters on T-shirts and/or business cards isn't a difficult thing to do. I am sure you can find plenty of cheap Chinese laborers out there, in UK, US, or better, in China. You can also bribe some local Chinese officials so they won't ask cops to bother you when you are doing your little investigation or polling. When you come back, simply tell us you were greeted by how many thumbs-up and how many middle fingers. More importantly, you'll have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness both capitalism and democracy in action in China, in one trip. Look, I asked you if you have any ideal case of freedom of speech in the real world, but you couldn't even conjure up one. Unless you want to talk about utopian, this out-of-context discussion is really meanless. BTW hayes, the current PRC may be an Authoritarian country, but by no means a Totalitarian regime. Your confusion of these two important yet distinct political concepts coupled with your lack of real-life experience in China may explain your tendency of mixing PRC and Nazi Germany (a clear-cut example of Totalitarianism) from time to time.
Sorry I've only had a chance to skim this thread as I'm pretty busy with work and other things so I didn't see your middle ground point. In general a for profit corporation as an entity has no moral obligation beyond making a profit for its share holders. It has societal and legal obligations to conduct its business in a way that isn't illegal or negligent. To the point that it does do something that most peopel find morally reprehensible the negative publicity hurting sales is the punishment they fear rather than a guilty conscious. For profit corporations are what they are and if a for profit corporation wants to do business in China that means working with the CCP. As I said its not something I'm going to uphold them for but but at the sametime as a small businessman who's the CEO of a small corporation I can't fault them for wanting to do business in potentially the largest market to ever exists. That's why I said a for profit corporation isn't going to be a moral compass and its a mistake to look to them to it. I liken the situation to tobacco companies. I'm not a smoker and believe smoking is a bad and dangerous habit. That said tobacco companies are selling a legal product and I think that if people are really so concerned about big tobacco the solution is to outlaw tobacco rather than go around suing them for selling a legal product. Again I'm not defending tobacco corporations and feel they haven't acted socially responsibly or even in many cases morally but I'm not going to look to RJ Reynolds as a moral compass. As for ripping companies that do business with repressive regimes personally I'm not someone who rips corporations for doing business in places like Libya or Nigeria. I think its socially irresponsible but at the same time believe that if people are so upset the solution is in boycotting their products and forcing them to change through their bottom line rather than just ripping them and expecting them to change out of their goodness of their heart. I mean you can't expect Walmart not to do business with the PRC if you shop at Walmart for their low prices. That other people do that's their own right as for this specific case I morally disagree with it but I understand why Yahoo did it and overall don't find it to be reprehensible enough to make me boycott Yahoo. Is that what you're asking for?
Nope. Thought it was a development worth discussing. I am a little troubled by your interpretation of what a corporation 'should' do, though. Corporations ARE run by people - not machines. As such those people 'should' do what they can to be socially responsible just as their consumers should. That doesn't mean that they do no business otherwise - like you I understand decisions aren't black/white - but they CAN exert pressure on suppliers, just as consumers can exert pressure on them. If we affirm that a corporation's ONLY guide is profit then we encourage that outlook. That dooms us to a cycle of corporate misconduct (suprisingly that's what we call it - misconduct) whether it takes the form of dumping hazardous waste on the roadside because its cheaper than proper disposal or rigging your earnings reports like in Enron. In this case, no - I don't expect Yahoo to say 'forget it we're out of here.' But I don't think it is right to help the state imprison the guy for what he did - hence what 'could' Yahoo do (the question of a middle ground).
Hayes; Though we consumers aren't helpless in this matter though. As I said we can vote with our dollars and if we don't feel a corporation isn't acting responsibly we don't have to shop at them. The whole concept of having a corporation is to maximize profit by limiting liability. So yes corporations are run by people but at the same time those people are their to make a profit for shareholders. If people are offended by what corporations do there are two solutions. One push for regulations preventing that behavior or don't buy from them. The surest way to change corporate behavior is to threaten their revenue.
