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Yahoo! China Blocks Users Looking Up Dirty Words 
By: SearchNewz Staff 2006-06-16 Yahoo! went higher on the Reporters Without Borders' S-list this week after the freedom of the press organization conducted a review to discover which search engine censored the most content in China. Yahoo.cn scored the worst in Beijing kowtowing of any of the major search engines operating within the communist borders. Technically, Yahoo.cn is owned by Alibaba, but Yahoo! still remains a major shareholder. It's search offering returned more restricted results, based on keywords like -press freedom- and -democracy- than Google, Baidu, or MSN beta. The pie graphs supplied by RSF reveal that not only do the fewest unauthorized sources make it through Yahoo!s filters, but that user access is often temporarily blocked after searching for forbidden terms. The breakdown: Google.cn: 17 percent of unauthorized sources slip through the filters MSN beta: 22 percent Baidu: 5 percent of unauthorized sources make it through; 33 percent yield no results; 50 percent yield no results and ban the user Yahoo.cn: 2 percent of unauthorized sources; 50 percent yield no results and ban the user Reporters Without Borders were "shocked" by the scale of censorship on Yahoo!'s Chinese site, saying search results on so-called "subversive" keywords are 97 percent pro-Beijing. The organization was shocked a second time to learn that searches on especially sensitive terms, like -6-4-, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, blocked results and temporarily blocked users from searching at all. Yahoo has maintained that it is only abiding by Chinese law, but the results of the testing suggests that the company has worked hard, harder than the rest, to ensure favor with the government. On its Website, RSF posted, "We are convinced that these companies can still access the Chinese market without betraying their ethical principles. They must however adopt a firm and clear position in relation to the Chinese authorities. About the Author: One of the many staff writers covering the search engine industry for SearchNewz.com. |
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