"Yahoo betrayed my husband and deprived him of freedom," said Yu Ling, 55, through a translator, her voice trembling. "Yahoo must learn its lesson."

What had happened? ...Wirednews reports:

Early one Sunday morning in 2002, a phone rings in Yu Ling's Beijing duplex. She's cleaning upstairs; her son is asleep, while downstairs, her husband, Wang Xiaoning, is on the computer. Wang writes about politics, anonymously e-mailing his online e-journals to a group of Yahoo users. He's been having problems with his Yahoo service recently. He thinks it's a technical issue. This is the day he learns he's wrong.

Moments later, government agents swarm through the front door -- 10 of them, some in uniform, some not. They take Wang away. They take his computers and disks. They shove an official notice into Yu's hands, tell her to keep quiet, and leave. This is how it's done in China. This is how the internet police grab you.

Yu's husband is now in Beijing Prison No. 2, serving a 10-year sentence for inciting subversion with his pro-democracy internet writings. According to the written court verdict, the Chinese government convicted Wang, in part, on evidence provided by Yahoo.

Cullinan says Yahoo is strongly opposed to repression of free speech and is working to develop a set of operating principles to guide its engagement in countries with repressive governments. He adds that Yahoo had not heard of Wang's case until now, though it was widely reported last year. "We haven't seen the court documents," he says. "But we condemn what happened."

The court's verdict clearly illustrates that Yahoo had a role in the case. The court writes that a Yahoo subsidiary, Yahoo China, first blocked Wang's Yahoo group in 2001. Yahoo Hong Kong, a separate subsidiary, then submitted written testimony linking that group to a specific Yahoo e-mail address in China. Cullinan disputes parts of the court's account. "There is no exchange of information between Yahoo Hong Kong and mainland security forces," he says.