Yahoo! founder admits it helped jail journalist over leaked warning

Tao, who is from the northwestern province of Shanxi, was jailed on April 30 for leaking a warning from authorities about a crackdown on protesters ahead of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre last year. He is now serving 10 years' imprisonment.

Yang, who was speaking out at an internet conference in China, said that the demand for the information was a "legal order" and Yahoo! gets such requests from law enforcement agencies all the time, and not just in China. However, he did add that he was not happy with the outcome.

Yahoo! helped authorities track down Tao in November 2004 by supplying the IP address from which he accessed his Yahoo! email to send out notes on a goverment circular detailing restrictions on the media.

Yahoo! and its major rivals including Google and MSN, have all come under attack for censoring online news sites and blogs featuring content that the Chinese government wants to keep under wraps.

The internet companies have been expanding their presence in mainland China with the hope of reaching more of the country's fast-growing population of internet users, which now number more than 100m.

Last month, Yahoo! paid $1bn (£548m) for a 40% stake in Alibaba.com, host of the Hangzhou conference at which Yang made his comments.

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