It is easy to condemn Yahoo! and Google and others for dealing with China and giving in to government pressure. But it is cheap as they would be even more criticized if they failed to generate the revenue they do in China.

The Chinese government must not jail people for their opinions just as Chinese workers should not be forced to work 14 hours a day for 2$.

The only way to effectively criticize a commercial company is with a boycott. If Nike or Google has more to loose than to win from doing business with China, then they will stop doing it.

Those who buy Matel toys and wearing cheap clothes should think about their own involvement and support to a totalitarian regime which has its usefulness in the global economy.

The companies who make profits in China pay the taxes which are used to pay the officials filing for claims at Yahoo and Google. It's a circle really, we are all guilty.

A more effective way would be to stop selling weapons and military equipment to China. That would hurt mostly the Communist Party and maybe move them to adopt gentler ways with their people.

Most irritating apostrophe ever!

Guys, I love El Reg to bits but ffs stop doing that exclamation point thing in Every! Headline! About! Yahoo!

It aint big and it aint clever. It's just hackneyed and bloody irritating.

Given the option between working for that $2 a day and not working...

Yes, indentured servitude exists here, but it is not widespread and certainly not legal. No more socially acceptable than the East-European women coerced into "Entertainment Employment" in every major city in the UK.

Don't get me wrong, I in no form support the structures in place here, but foreign factories and manufacturers working for export are far from the worst places to work. Keep in mind 1000euros a month here would be a very very good wage, a long way above the average for skilled labour. $600 a month would be an attractive proposition for unskilled work anywhere outside the major cities.

(I hate Icons)

El Reg has its habits, and you can't educate a vulture. No sense in trying.

As for the cost of doing business with China, I have long been of the opinion that society should reinstate public whipping as a form of corporate punishment. Of course, it's the CEO that gets the whipping.

Then we'll see just who thinks making money unethically is a profitable business.

There was a poll. You guys lost, the exclamation mark fans rigged the voting. (E-Voting at it's finest!)

"A more effective way would be to stop selling weapons and military equipment to China."

You are, of course, aware that China manufactures their own weapons (the Chinese knock-off of the AK-47 is still in production) and military equipment.

And one wonders what Nike, Goggle, Yahoo, or any other company could "loose" in China. Perhaps they might loosen up the Ultimate Nanny State's stranglehold on public morality?

Personally, with all of the recent news about dangerous products made in China, I've been boycotting Chinese products as much as practical out of sheer self-preservation instinct. I don't find that a government that openly oppresses its people is any more abhorrent than a government that pretends to be a democracy but oppresses its people through the use of surreptitious violations of the established rights of those people, and the US and UK both are guilty of that.

But these 'hackneyed and bloody irritating' little quirks are what make The Register 'El Reg'!

If they quit doing these idiosyncratic things, how long would it be before you're saying, "The Register? I used to read it before they became just like everybody else."

Viva La Reg!

It's easy to complain about the injustices of totalitarian regimes, but to affect it we'd have to stop buying those cheap USB sticks and lovely MacBooks made under those regimes.

Unfortunately in today's society there's often no alternative (in electronics especially) but to buy something made in an unjust system.

Perhaps the Western governments should pass a "fair trade" law that ensured no indentured servitude was used making products? Would our economies collapse, would the Chinese people get a better standard of living, or would it lead to more jobs in UK factories making those goods?

I don't know the answer to those questions, but I do know that not so long ago we were buying Ikea lamps made in East Germany and so on. What happened to our democratic ideals and the evils of Communism?

They get a telling off for giving out the IP/e-mail addresses in China, yet if the old RIAA was after them they'd get a telling off if they *didn't* do it.

Shame they couldn't "accidentally lose" the logs and get away with it really.