Yahoo sidesteps hacking report
“Yahoo! condemns all cyberattacks regardless of origin or purpose,” a spokesperson for the US Internet firm said in response to an AFP inquiry.
“We are committed to protecting user security and privacy and we take appropriate action in the event of any kind of breach.” The spokesperson declined to confirm, deny or comment on specific incidents.
The hacking report came less than two weeks after Google stopped censoring Internet search results in China in a move that was hailed by rights groups but drew an angry reaction from Chinese authorities.
The Internet titan shifted mainland Chinese users of its Chinese-language search engine Google.cn to an uncensored site in former British colony Hong Kong.
Google said the decision to no longer bow to Chinese censors stemmed from censorship and cyberattacks it said originated in China.
China reacted quickly to Google’s move saying it was “totally wrong” to stop censorship and to blame Beijing for cyberattacks that Google said targeted email accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
Beijing tightly controls online content in a vast system dubbed the “Great Firewall of China,” removing information it deems harmful such as pornography and violent content, but also politically sensitive material.
Google said Tuesday that trouble with results at its Chinese-language search engine were evidently caused by China’s censorship machine.
“Whatever happened today to block Google.com.hk must have been as a result of a change in the great firewall,” a Google spokesman said in an email response to an AFP inquiry.
“However, interestingly our search traffic in China is now back to normal — even though we have not made any changes at our end.” Google also reported that its mobile Internet service in China remained partially blocked but it was unknown whether the trouble was related to the stand-off over censorship there.
Google mobile includes search, map, news and other services for smartphones and other Internet-enabled handsets.
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