Yahoo Inc. did not violate Hong Kong’s privacy laws when it provided prosecutors with information about a Chinese reporter accused of leaking state secrets, authorities said Wednesday.
Shi Tao, a former journalist for the Dangdai Shangbao or Contemporary Business Newspaper in the central province of Hunan, was sentenced last year to 10 years on charges of leaking state secrets.
Shi was alleged to have e-mailed the contents of a secret official memo about media restrictions to the U.S.-based Democracy Forum Web site.
Journalism activists criticized Yahoo Inc. after it emerged that the Hong Kong branch had given prosecutors e-mail from Shi’s account.
Hong Kong’s privacy commissioner said in a statement Wednesday that there was not enough evidence to support the view that Yahoo Hong Kong violated privacy laws.
The statement was in response to a complaint from Hong Kong lawmaker Albert Ho who said last year he had obtained a document linking the company to Shi’s case.
The document, which Ho said was a copy of the Shi’s criminal verdict, said, “Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. provided materials that confirmed the user’s information.”
