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 Like other organisations such as Google, Microsoft and Cisco, Yahoo as an evil reputation when it comes to human rights.

Chinese journalist Shi Tao, jailed for 10 years for sending an email to a US pro-democracy group, joined Yu Ling, wife of Wang Xiaoning, another imprisoned cyber dissident, in suing Yahoo for its part “facilitating the arrest, imprisonment, and torture of Chinese internet users,” p2pnet posted in 2007.

“The 2004 Chinese court verdict that sentenced Shi Tao to jail specifically cited Yahoo! as having provided Chinese authorities with information identifying Shi Tao as the owner of the e-mail account and the source of the communications,” said World Organization for Human Rights USA’s Colleen M. Costello at the time.

Nor were Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning alone.

Now, Yahoo gave Iranian authorities the names and emails of some 200,000 Iranian Yahoo users, says a post on the Iranian Students Solidarity blog, quoted by Richard Koman on ZDNet.

“My sources indicate the information comes from a group of resisters who have infiltrated the administration and are leaking out important information,” says Koman, going on, “These sources say that Yahoo representatives met with Iranian Internet authorities after Google and Yahoo were shut down during the protests and agreed to provide the names of Yahoo subscribers who also have blogs in exchange for the government lifting the blocks on Yahoo.”

The blog accusing Yahoo is in Farsi, but ZDNet has a translation from the Iran student site, which has as its banner »»»

Site belongs to all Compatriots who are trying for returning of: Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights to Iran. Contacts: iranian.students.solidarity@gmail.com \ iranian.students.solidarity.info@gmail.com.

Says the ZDNet translation »»»

On 27th of Shahrivar (Day of Qods) when Iranians demonstrated again on the streets, the Iranian authorities in addition to blocking many internet sites, all over Iran, blocked or severely limited access to Yahoo and Google. Google did not react and its problem was resolved with 48 hours, but Yahoo sent a representative to Iran’s telecommunications ministry, to resolve the issue.

During the meeting with Iranian Internet authorities and telecommunications authorities, Yahoo representatives were asked to provide Iranian authorities with the names (data) on all Iranian Internet account holders in exchange for removing the block/filter on the Yahoo website.

The Yahoo representative subsequently expressed that currently there were more than 20 million email accounts and providing such a list will be a very time-consuming process. To which the IRGC (Islamic Republic Guardian Council) replied by asking the representative to provide email accounts of those individuals who have Yahoo accounts and are publishing blogs.

Apparently this made Yahoo’s task a bit easier and the Yahoo representative agreed to provide such a list within a matter of hours. Upon the receipt of such a list, which included approximately 200,000 emails, by the Iranian authorities, the regime immediately unblocked access to the Yahoo.com website. The list went back as far as five years and included active and inactive accounts and blogs.

It is necessary to mention here that the Iranian Yahoo is managed by Yahoo Corporation in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur).

“If true, this is a deeply troubling development and exposes Yahoo as determined to cooperate with repressive governments, regardless of who they might be,” Koman adds.

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