In China, Yahoo Names Names

Yahoo asked a US federal court yesterday to dismiss a human rights lawsuit accusing the company of abetting the Chinese government. Two imprisoned Chinese journalists accuse the Web giant of passing along information about users that led to the arrest, imprisonment, and sometimes torture of writers and dissidents, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Yahoo counters that it "has no control over the sovereign government of the People's Republic of China" and contends that American courts don't have jurisdiction. The plaintiffs' lawyer argues that Yahoo had an ethical obligation to ask why the government wanted the information, saying companies doing business overseas "are not bound just by the laws of their host countries." (More Yahoo stories.)