The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday called on the public to stop using their Yahoo e-mail accounts if the US search-engine giant continues to attach the Web site address of Chinese Yahoo for users in Taiwan.
E-mail users in Taiwan with yahoo.com accounts see their outbound e-mail automatically show the Web site address for Chinese Yahoo (http://cn.mail.yahoo.com) at the bottom of their message if they access their account from Taiwan’s Yahoo, Yahoo Kimo.
TSU Spokeswoman Chow Mei-li (周美里) yesterday lambasted the US company, saying it had a notorious record of currying favor with Beijing.
“Last year, it received harsh criticism for leaking the information of a Chinese dissident to the Chinese government, leading to his arrest,” she said. “Now they are doing this. If they pay that much attention to China, they should focus on the Chinese market.”
Chow was referring to Yahoo’s cooperation with Chinese police in tracking down cyber dissidents.
In November last year, the US Congress sharply rebuked Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang (楊致遠) and the company, which he co-founded, over Yahoo’s role in landing Chinese journalist Shi Tao (師濤) behind bars.
Shi was convicted in 2005 of divulging state secrets after he e-mailed to an overseas Web site a Chinese government order forbidding media organizations from marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Police identified Shi as the sender of the e-mail using information provided by Yahoo. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
In response to pressure from Congress and rights organizations, Yahoo held talks with industry partners, academics, civic groups and investors on an industry code of conduct governing the behavior of global technology and communication companies operating in “challenging markets.”
Yang has been campaigning for prisoners of conscience and has established a human rights fund to offer humanitarian and legal support to political dissidents imprisoned for expressing their views online.
Chow yesterday said if Yahoo did not stop attaching its Chinese Yahoo Web site address to its US Yahoo e-mail users in Taiwan, they would continue to ask Taiwanese users of Yahoo to drop their accounts with the company.
Yahoo Kimo said yesterday that the attachment of the address for Chinese Yahoo resulted from the language the user chose and the country operating the system.
Users get the tag line of China Yahoo because China is the country managing the Web site of US Yahoo in Chinese, said Kelly Hsu (?m), public relations manager of Yahoo Kimo, adding that the message was an advertisement posted by the system operator.
If the users do not want the ad, they can alter the content preferences for their account, she said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
RSS