A pint to the first person to flame him on the exclamation marks.

While raising a chuckle the first couple of times I saw it, the old exclamation gag has got a bit tired from overuse. Perhaps it is time to declare it a Saga Lout and leave it to drink itself into oblivion in the retirement home. Like all elderly, conveniently sidelined relatives, it can be dragged out once a year at Christmas to remind us fondly of the old days and then return, thankfully, to obscurity.

has seriously degraded since the 60's. Used to be that American businesses were out to make money but not at the expense of principals and honor. Billions in earnings have historically been sacrificed because business leaders stuck by the forgotten motto "I don't do business unless it makes me smile". The businessman of today has no sense of principal or honor. It's makes me sad that people have forgotten how much profit can be gleaned from abiding by principal and sticking to honor.

I'm all about f*uc*ing someone for buck but only with people who are playing the same game as me. Innocent people (consumers, foreigners, mentally retarded, etc..) are not playing my game and it's not right to punish them for it.

That's the end of my bleeding heart diatribe. I'll be sorry I made this comment tomorrow as it will make me appear weak, but hey, I've got a bit of principal left.

Union Carbide, United Fruit, Standard Oil, Colorado Mining Association...

How is Yahoo giving information on its users different to my ISP being forced to tell the RIAA what I have been downloading recently? Or the US gov reading all my emails?

OK the US gov doesn't then do a 'black bag' on me but it does screw up my life with big fines, threats ect.

Whatever the reasoning behind it, there is little difference between one case and another (this or RIAA demanding user details). There's just a vast difference in the way they are viewed, seen that the U.S. control the internet (or would like to think they do).

Yahoo caved to a foreign governments demands for their logs, despite NOT being covered by Chinese law. If the Chinese wanted the logs, Yahoo should have made them apply for them through a U.S. court, thus covering their own back. It was a poor decision on their part. Mind you, if the U.S. do find them guilty on human rights charges then it would be a total hypocrisy when you look at other cases.

I think it brilliant the US taking the moral high ground here! This is as simple as "look - we're not the only ones that do this" although the US would have the decency to ship you to another un-legislated country before violating your human rights.

The root of the problem may be that the Chinese have not agreed with the US do carry out these activities "discreetly" in conjunction with US guidelines! (which may or may not exist).

I think we may have just witnessed a government being up front and honest about how it does things although Im not sure as I've nothing to compare against!

I think this open approach is more of effective at reducing crime than an invisible approach which prides itself more on catching than detering.

Chinese = Nasty Oppression

USofA = Necessary GWOT

I think what would really clear matters up is for the USofA to provide us with a definition of 'Global' so we can understand how some countries apparently don't live on the same planet!

It will be interesting to watch the newly formed (SCO) Shanghai Cooperation Organization which contains Russia and China. I wonder what classification they will give to the US or if they will completely ignore cultural differences.

I wonder if the US will have google and yahoo sensor our searches (for our own good) to allow us to understand their efforts more effectively.

Given that Yahoo has subsideries running within the borders of China - why would they /not/ be covered by chinese law?

Any time you operate in another country, you are covered by their laws - that's the way it has to be, and although the internet makes this a sort of grey area, I believe that Yahoo do physically operate in China.

If they were operating solely out of US based facilities, then I would agree that the Chinese government should take this up there.

To put this differently - Do you believe that a construction company with their HQ in a tax haven should create buildings that meet that countries low safety requirements, or the local ones where you live - if they're building a factory down the road from you?

tree hugging hippies live in la la land where only their own good laws should be applied across the road.

and since when has american business been touchy feely, they have no problem selling tech, chemical weapons and guns to dictators just as long as they're "good" dictators (re Saddam Hussein.)

Anyway like China gives a toss, they own the US stock market.

You operate in a country you follow its laws, live with it.

Provided of course you belive they are. Any country can run itself how it likes, so long as it's in the American interest. History is littered by countries that have not towed the US line and both the US and UK censor the web, in their own unique way. Don't belive me?

Change your name to mohammed, then download some documents, visit flight training schools, diy bombs manuals, maybe do a bit of Google earth searching and see how "free" the US and UK really are.....

Orange jumpsuits anyone?

and need I say Pakistan? Ruled by an oppresive military dictatorship - but it's alright coz they're with us...

I thought Yahoo and google did monitor searches. I might just be being paranoid but I'm sure I read somewhere that some keywords (bomb making, etc) caused them to log certain searches. I'm sure the people here will tell me if this true.

As far as I understand it one of the problems with key phrase logging was you could only monitor what you knew about - new legislation in the UK is forcing data including access details and searches to be available for two years - to allow investigations to proceed after the event thus, all searches are logged from word to phrase etc..

To be honest, I do think this a realistic approach and although it is open to abuse by the authorities there doesn't seem to be any alternatives.

Getting back onto to China - their country their rules, at least they are open about how things are handled - can't remember the last time the Pakistan problems were highlighted on any national news!!!

I do believe the 'stealth' strategies of the US & UK defeat the purpose. Detterants are more effective than entrapment - Australia appears to have figured this one out