Yahoo Rejects Anti-Censorship Proposal 150
Matthew Skala writes "The BBC reports that Yahoo! has rejected a shareholder proposal to adopt an anti-censorship policy, as well as one to set up a human rights committee to review the impact of Yahoo!'s operations in places like China. The interesting proposals are numbers 6 and 7 in the proxy statement available through EDGAR. This news comes on the heels of jailed Chinese reporter Shi Tao, suing Yahoo! for its involvement in his conviction, and Google's rejection of a similar proposal. The anti-censorship proposal was submitted by the same groups (several New York City pension funds) as the Google proposal. The proxy statement also includes the Board's recommendations — "strongly oppose[ing]" both proposals — with explanations of their reasoning."
The Board's Response (Score:2, Informative)
Yahoo! shares the proponent's commitment to human rights, and as described in more detail in the board's statement in opposition to proposal no. 6 in this proxy statement, the Company's management team has already instituted practices and initiatives that are designed to assess the implications of the Company's activities and policies and to protect and advance essential freedoms, such as freedom of expression and privacy rights.
To
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This is always the case at an AGM. I've never seen the board recommend FOR a stockholder proposal, nor have I ever seen one voted in. They are a waste of time regardless of the company.
Re:The Board's Response (Score:5, Interesting)
...as long as it doesn't cost us any money.
You got that right as long as it doesn't cost Yaho (Score:2)
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It might work, yes. Unfortunately China currently has a population of 1.3 Billion against Americas population of 0.3 billion.
So if you gain every single american who ditches google, but lose every single resident of China you are still at least 1 billion down. The reason that all companies are so keen to jump into bed with China is that they have such a huge population and yet the standard of living is rising at a scary rate.
Thi
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I didn't refer to either company because they're only marginally relevant. If they aren't there, someone else will fill the gap, search engines are plentiful. One may be more convenient than others, but most of them are "good enough" at getting results a user can use. Let's say all the existing search engines choose to boycott China.
China has money, they can make th
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Good ol' proposals. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Good ol' proposals. (Score:4, Funny)
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Is there an echo in your parent's basement?
There, fixed that for you.
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Someone posting with a karma bonus starts at 2. Overrated moderations should not be allowed to take them below 3, and underrated should not be able to take them over 1. If they are on 0, or -1, then an underrated moderation will negate one down-mod. If they are on 4 or 5, then a an overrated mod will negate one up-mod.
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What if they don't comply? (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's what I don't understand, if Yahoo! stops complying with local laws, as these shareholders suggest, wouldn't it be purely and simply out of business in China? Could any company violate the Chinese laws and keep working in China, thus providing Chinese citizens a breach in the Great Firewall?
Because that's where it doesn't make sense to me, but maybe my analyse is a bit over-simplistic, if Yahoo! tries not to apply censorship laws, then it won't be able to operate in China and thus it wouldn't be any good for either Yahoo! or Chinese web-surfers, right? Or did I get something wrong?
Re:What if they don't comply? (Score:5, Insightful)
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They're shareholders. Why should they concern themselves with anything other than the company's profit? I know this sounds harsh and cynical, but this is the simple truth behind the public company concept. Whatever lofty reasons they might give for their decision, the real reason is that losing business in China would mean losing profits.
Re:What if they don't comply? (Score:4, Insightful)
The proposal has been made and the board of directors have recommended voting against it proposal brought about by other shareholders. So it is the directors who are placing profit above human rights and not the shareholders at large. The very idea that the shareholders at large are responsible is ridiculous. The people responsible for the decisions made are far fewer and less obscure than you are trying to indicate.
Re:What if they don't comply? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not ridiculous at all. The directors have only recommended that the shareholders vote against the proposal. It's still up to the shareholders themselves to vote to make the final decision. The shareholders are ultimately responsible, not the board.
That said, boards of directors traditionally have a lot of sway in how the shareholders vote. Many companies are owned largely by various mutual funds and not by individual people, and the shares owned by the funds are voted for them by the fund manager. And fund managers almost always vote the way the board of directors recommend, meaning this might be the kiss of death for the proposal.
The shareholders do have another option, though. They can divest themselves from a stock they consider morally repugnant. This was done with modest success back in the 1980s to companies who did business with apartheid Africa; But mutual funds have grown much larger since then, and a sell-off by concerned individuals would probably have little effect on Yahoo!s stock price.
There are also mutual funds that pledge to invest in only socially responsible companies (can't think of their names right now, but they're pretty easy to find.) If they own any Yahoo! stock today, their fund managers would probably vote their shares for the proposal, and if it failed to pass they would probably divest themselves.
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I'd bet that not a single board member is so poor that he couldn't take the risk of getting fired over being anti-censorship and look for another job. If they do decide to instead direct the company without a sense of morals they don't do it because they are forced. There is nobody who could apply any pressure to them beyond - "oh I can't by another Porsche this year". So if they do suggest a policy like that they do it based on their own free wil
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The thing that got me when Google entered the Chinese market was their idea that "we can't effect change in China if we're not inside China." So they compromised their morals in order to provide the Chinese people with a Tienanmen-free search engine, and tried to do something controversial like tagging the results with "These results have been censored by th
Or Both (Score:2)
It's also possible that the shareholders recognize that people like me will boycott Yahoo! over this issue and that's bad for profits. The ethicality is sometimes about which issues you chose to make a stink about.
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By your logic, it's perfectly okay to support another country's activity in the exploitation of children in pornography, prostitution or labor if it happens to be legal in that country. Does the argument change when the issue is more focused? I'm not saying China is good with the exploitation of children, I'm just trying to
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Why is it that most people on here (and indeed, lots of places) go out of their way to justify just not giving a damn about other people? If we want to be selfish and care not for others, then just do it openly. The
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I think if Yahoo took that stand it'd be a great F.U. to Google. Whether that F.U. can turn into money down the road is anyone's guess.
Would you stop using Google things (maps, gmail, etc) if Yahoo had those tools AND were anti-censorship? It's ok... I don't know if I would either.
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Hell no. I choose my email, maps, search engines, etc. based on functionality, not politics.
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Or we can keep helping the Chinese government provide circuses to the Chinese people while also reporting those who dare do something unapproved by the Chinese government to the government.
I know which option I'd rather take.
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Can you please cite where the AC claimed there was ANY company ANYWHERE that has such a policy?
Not at all, especially in this context. The AC was replying to someone who suggested that sharehold
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Yahoo's in an impossible position. If they leave China, they've abandoned people. I
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Really? I think Yahoo could use this newfangled Internet to set up a Chinese-language site outside of the Chinese government's jurisdiction. If the Chinese government chooses to cripple their own economy by cutting off it's workforce from modern tools, that's a choice they should have to make. We certainly don't need to be volunteering to come in and help them.
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If I were a citizen I wouldn't want the company acting as government shills. And since I am a stockholder, I am going to act on my
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Yeah, when you think about the problem some more, imagine that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft ceased any activity in China as the aforementioned shareholders suggested, maybe at some point the Chinese government would feel forced to bend their rules for these companies to come back in order to not become technologically retarded.
Or maybe more alternatives to these sites (iirc the #1 search engine in China is a Chinese search engine which obviously complies with the laws) could develop and ultimately Google, Ya
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The only reason Microsoft deals with China at all is to try to stem the tide of piracy. If Microsoft gave China the finger, China would respond in kind. Factories across China would start spitting out pirated copies of every Microsoft application in every language, giving them away and flooding the world markets with free copies of Office, ju
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They certainly do not care about their people, but they undoubtfully care about their economy, and most notably, its tremendous growth. My point about technological retardation was that to have an underdeveloped Internet in a country could directly harm the economy, and its growth. Just imagine a country cloned on the USA except far behind the original when it comes to Internet. See how much the IT industry participates to the economy of industrial countries (or whatever they're called now)? My point was, I
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I don't think that will happen. I think the problem lies in that while many Chinese politicians like money, they also like raw power. Power can come from having money, yes, but power also comes from other sources, such as title, role, authority, family relations, etc. The trouble is that if Internet/Web-based
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Well, yes and no. It seems easy to say they'd be gone, but of course they wouldn't really. Yahoo.com is not going anywhere, and Yahoo is perfectly capable of setting up a Chinese version of their site outside of China's borders.
If Yahoo and Google both simply made Chinese sites they'd be putting the burden on Chinese officials to censor them, rather than volunteering to do it themselves. The net effect might be exactly the same as it is today -- af
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If Yahoo/Google insisted on a formal (though secret) order before censoring/wiretapping, would this get
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Here's what I don't understand, if Yahoo! stops complying with local laws, as these shareholders suggest, wouldn't it be purely and simply out of business in China?...
Here's what I don't understand: why doesn't Yahoo just shut down the few specific services in China (e-mail, Yahoo Groups) that can result in pro-democracy critics being tortured in jail. Doesn't Yahoo have about a zillion other services that, while censored, will not force them to give up political dissidents to the torturers?
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+1, Good Point
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Communist over Capitalist (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Communist over Capitalist... no (Score:2)
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH A HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ; STOP IT! You're killing me....
Foreign concerns have been doing business w/China for thousands of years, bud. Barriers down? Which ones...please tell me. England was here for hundreds of years - gold and silver came in by the ton and rice on English frigates...spices and porcelain want out the same wa
rats (Score:2)
gold and silver came in by the ton on English frigates...rice, spices and porcelain want out the same way.
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No — especially since our particular brand of Capitalism makes all bribery illegal — including that of foreign governments [wikipedia.org].
Corporations are good at and are judged on making money. Aiding human rights is nowhere in the picture. Until the lawmakers pass some kind of FCPA-2.0 — which would outlaw cooperation with oppressing regimes the same way FCPA outlaws bribery — no corporation will shoot itself in the stomac
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So no, the FCPA is practically on-paper only. Corporations obviously thumb their collective noses at it if they plainly justify it in their orientation PowerPoint
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It is all in comparision... Other Western countries don't have an FCPA-like law even on paper. And no, it is not an "on-paper only" law — there were and are prosecutions under the act. Here [steptoe.com] are some lawyers describing themselves as experts on defending against such prosecutions, for example...
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I agree with every other point you made. But I don't see what allowing China to overpopulate to the point they can't feed themselves and collapse into plague that rapidly spreads from China to every other part of the world would accomplish.
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Given that it is not actually clear that abortion is murder, perhaps you'd care to stick your rhetoric someplace warm, stinky, and dark.
I think that people who can't control their reproductive systems should be forcibly sterilized.
A
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It is very sad to see someone twist the idea of a woman's right to personal corporeal autonomy into an amoral indifference to killing people.
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You are an ignorant nimrod making statements you don't understand.
When rabbits overpopulate, they have a certain tendency to chew off the genitals of their rivals. When rats overpopulate they can do the same thing, but usually just kill each other. We are animals like any other and you don't know one fucking thing about being an animal. Obviously.
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This is proof that communist power > capitalist power.
As Lenin put it, "The West will sell us the rope to hang them with."
Let me translate... (Score:2)
Translation: Yahoo will give a brief second's thought to the plight of the common person in China before diving back into their Money Bin, Scrooge McDuck style.
Disproportionate effect (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's face it, these rejections are driven by China. No, the government of China is not leaning on Google, Yahoo!, et. al., but is making it quite clear that the continued right to operate in China via Chinese web connections requires some... alterations. And because China is seen as such a lucrative market given its population size, non of these companies is willing to put itself in a position to be banned by the Chinese, ceding dominance of the market to its competitors.
I'll be most impressed if one of them decides to stand up and say "enough is enough". The fact is, the population of China is large, but they only comprise 1.3 billion of the 6+ billion people on the planet. A significant fraction, but not enough to justify turning their back on principle.
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> of the 6+ billion people on the planet. A significant fraction, but not enough to
> justify turning their back on principle."
Considering they are already competing for another fraction, and that the remaining fraction is mostly devoid of Internet access, I'd say China is pretty important to them.
I also posit that you haven't really imagined how many people are 1.3 billion.
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Silly proposal (Score:2)
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No other major company does any differently... just as Google didn't.
I love that justification. Yahoo points at Google, Google points at Microsoft and Microsoft points at Yahoo. Each of them use the other to justify their actions, when in reality the cause is their own greed.
To think that a company should say "no we're not going to participate in this MASSIVE market because we don't like the [moral] limits they place on us, which don't impact our financials at all," is silly.
Well call me silly, because I believe should do the right thing over the legal thing.
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At that point the entire company (not just
Really? (Score:2)
Outrageous things have been asked of corporations. Compliance was not the right answer.
That defense.... (Score:2)
There is a point when your profits no longer take precedence in the presence of clear moral evil.
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What markets can and cannot do (Score:5, Interesting)
But when it comes to profit vs. principle, it seems to hit a wall. Is this the reason markets can't stop human trafficing and a gov't has to step in. Any of you collije edumacated E-conomists want to correct me here?
Re:What markets can and cannot do (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not an economist, but this is why you can't have laissez faire capitalism to begin with. Letting the market take over human rights is precisely where the government should step in. To me if you are a multi-national corporation that operates and sells goods in the US, you should have to follow certain standards. Outsourcing should meet human rights standards, and any dealings in other companies should have to be held up to a standard. If given the choice between morality and money the corporation will always pick money as has been shown time and time again, the idea is that it's the government that has to force the corporation's hand in doing the "right thing."
Someone said it before and I'm probably misquoting them, but it comes down to I don't give a shit what the CEO of Ford thinks about emissions or his record on environmentalism, just like I don't give a shit what the CEO of Yahoo! thinks about human rights. I'm sure that some of these people are great people with great intentions, but regulation of the environment and human rights should be the government's job, because these things don't have pricetags, and the "free market" can't solve these problems. We shouldn't be expected to accept moral "handouts" from CEOs who decide that they will no longer do the wrong thing, we should be able to tell them to do the right thing, or quit doing business with us, without dollars and cents being the measurement.
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If humans desire something, and other humans have it, it will be sold in a free market.
This does not impugn free markets or capitalism, only those humans and their desires.
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What those people mean is markets are like water, and will seek their own level, if left unrestrained. The problem is most people are myopic, and don't have the stomach for what this can mean in the short term.
Poor Guatamalan farm worker can't affort food after working 3000* hrs a week, while we get good, cheap bananas.
Most of the 'poor farmers' are lucky to have any jobs at all, and that's not the fault of free markets, it's the fault of
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Ah, but the original point I was making is that the immoral parts are not always equal to the inefficient parts. Slavery in the US was rather efficient for the cotton industry, or so it seemed to them at the time. They had zero market incentive to give that up, and it require extra-market forces to ensure that they did.
Your water analogy is apt. Water doesn't only seek it's own level, it seeks the lowest level.
What are some trade barri
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Yes, that is how slavery ended in America, is that the only way slavery could have ended?
Or if we didn't go to war, and the distastefulness of slavery continued to foment in the North, could the North have said, we're no longer buying cotton-based goods from the South, if they're made with cotton from s
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Who gets to decide the morality of the item being bought and sold? There is the problem with interfering in a free market. Perfect example is prohibition in the United States. People WANT alcohol. The government tried to legislate morality, they interfered with the free market, and screwed it up. Same thing is happening now with the War on Drugs. It goes on forever.
Free markets can work things out for themselves
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So your litmus test on whether something is 'good' or 'bad' is the level of outrage? That's open to abuse.
All you have to do is do the transactions in secret and they aren't truly bad anymore?
Or perhaps, a megacorporation, through marketing, indoctrination, lobbying, and other efforts directly affect the populations moral compass, and ultimately accept wh
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No, my litmus test on whether or something will continue to sell like hotcakes is the level of outrage.
If the level of outrage increases, the supply goes down. Perhaps even some of the demand. And the prices go up, and the sales go to the black market.
Some people like to say this is the fault of a free market, but the reality is if bad things are being bought, then either your definition of bad is not in line with everyone e
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It's the ultimate in mob (not mafia) behavior.
Bill Lumbergh the CEO of Yahoo? (Score:2, Funny)
"Is this Good for the Company?"
This way, when ever Yahoo has to make a decision about human rights or censorship, they ask themselves, "Is this Good for the Company?"
Oh, and remember: next Friday... is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.
Doomed to fail (Score:2)
Yes, I realize that censorship isn't a very controversial topic to you or me, but it is from
Dollars trump integrity (Score:2)
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Digging through the doublespeak (Score:2)
Anyone wanna buy some YHOO cheap? (Score:2)
I would really love to sell these shares for a penny each, if only to tank the stock as hard as possible. I know this is a pipe dream, but I'm angry, and I feel betr
Complicity in Crimes (Score:2)
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Exactly. (Score:2)
Is this the companies' job ? (Score:2)
If it is really important for a company to do, or stop doing something, then perhaps the government should regulate it? I know t
Wish at least the submitter would RTFA (Score:2)
If you're against censorship and propaganda, at least have the decency not to perform it yourself by twisting the words.
The shareholders own the company. (Score:2)
Inbound Clue-by-4, next stop is you (Score:2)
What the bastards running the Bush administration have to try and do in secret to protect themselves from the law, countries like Iran and China do openly. You think the SS will be mean if you make a stupid crack about assassin