Let me get this straight:

In 2002, Wang, an engineer, was detained by Chinese officials for writing pro-democracy articles on a Yahoo Groups Web site. Shi, a journalist, was arrested in 2004 after he forwarded an e-mail directing him not to cover the Tiananmen Square anniversary to an overseas Web site. Washington Post

Subsequently Yahoo was sued by the families of the jailed journalists, and lambasted for their “pygmy morals” in US congress.

They settled out of court today. Yahoo CEO, Jerry Yang, said this:

“After meeting with the families, it was clear to me what we had to do to make this right for them, for Yahoo! and for the future,” said Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang in a statement. “Yahoo! was founded on the idea that the free exchange of information can fundamentally change how people lead their lives, conduct their business and interact with their governments.”

“We are committed to making sure our actions match our values around the world. That’s why we are also working to establish a Human Rights Fund to provide humanitarian and legal aid to dissidents who have been imprisoned for expressing their views online,” he said. Wired

Yang is said to have apologized last week to Shi’s mother during the hearings in congress.

To Summarize:
Yahoo: “Geez Mrs Shi, sorry we passed on that Tian’anmen email. That’s a real bummer, that your son got sent to jail deal, eh? Now if you’ll excuse us, we have to get back to facilitating the free exchange of information that we tell people our company was founded upon.”

And a quick Yahoo search shows that the search giant has indeed settled back into that lucrative gray area of compromised morals. Back to business as usual in behind the Great Wall.

And here’s a “rough” translation:

Related: News.com on Yahoo Settles

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