The authorities in Hong Kong have decided that there is not enough evidence to prove that Yahoo! Hong Kong provided private information that helped to convict a Chinese reporter accused of leaking state secrets.

The city’s privacy commissioner said in a statement that it was Yahoo’s branch in mainland China – owned by Yahoo! Hong Kong – that supplied information about the journalist, so the act fell outside of Hong Kong’s jurisdiction

“This is a case where data was collected in mainland China about a mainland Chinese resident,” said Roderick Woo, the privacy commissioner.

Albert Ho, a Hong Kong legislator, filed a complaint last year with the city’s privacy commissioner, accusing Yahoo! of providing information that helped to convict Shi Tao, who was sentenced to ten years in jail in 2005 in mainland China.

The case raised questions about whether internet companies should cooperate with governments that deny freedom of speech and frequently crack down on journalists.

Yahoo!, based in Sunnyvale, California, has said that it was required under Chinese law to provide information requested by mainland authorities. The Hong Kong privacy commissioner’s report said that the company provided log-in information and “certain e-mail content,” which wasn’t described.

In a brief statement, the company said today: “Yahoo! Hong Kong maintains a high quality online environment for our users and takes user privacy very seriously.”

Mr Shi, a former writer for the financial publication Contemporary Business News, was jailed under state secrecy laws, after being accused of providing state secrets to foreigners. His conviction stemmed from an e-mail he sent containing his notes on a government circular that spelled out restrictions on the media.

Mr Ho said in March 2006 that he submitted a complaint against Yahoo! Hong Kong to the privacy commissioner after obtaining a document that he said linked the company to Mr Shi’s case.

Ho said the document was a copy of the criminal verdict for Mr Shi from a court in the central Chinese province of Hunan. According to Mr Ho, the document showed that Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. provided materials that confirmed the user’s information.

Today, Mr Ho criticised the privacy commissioner’s report, saying Yahoo! Hong Kong is still responsible because it controls the company’s China office. “I have reason to believe the decision [to give information on Mr Shi] was made in Hong Kong,” he said.

Mr Ho said Yahoo! shouldn’t have surrendered the information to Chinese authorities unquestioningly. “As an international company, Yahoo! should know there are international standards it should follow, including those involving human rights and privacy,” he said. “There’s no reason for it not to investigate whether [the information Mr Shi released] was a state secret.”

Human Rights Watch have accused Yahoo! of supplying information to Chinese authorities that led to the arrests of another journalist and two other Chinese dissidents.

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