SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Yahoo Inc. on Tuesday settled a lawsuit filed against the Internet company by Chinese dissidents who accused it of complicity in their jailing, according to a court filing.
Yahoo had been sued earlier this year in California by Wang Xiaoning, Shi Tao and Yu Ling for allegedly providing Chinese authorities with personal information that led to Shi and Wang's imprisonment and torture.
In a joint stipulation of dismissal filed in U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, Yahoo and the plaintiffs say they have reached a "private settlement understanding," though they disclosed no details. Yahoo agreed to bear the dissidents' legal costs, according to the filing.
In a prepared statement, Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang said that Yahoo will now provide "financial, humanitarian and legal support" to the jailed dissidents' families. Yahoo said exact terms of the settlement will not be disclosed. Separately, Yang said Yahoo is also now establishing a fund "to provide support to other political dissidents and their families."
Morton Sklar, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The settlement follows a dramatic appearance on Capitol Hill by Yang earlier this month. Yang had been called to testify about his company's responsibility for the jailing of Shi, a journalist who had used Yahoo services to post messages to a pro-democracy Web site.
In previous testimony in 2006, Yahoo general counsel Michael Callahan had said Yahoo had no understanding of why Chinese authorities were interested in Shi, when the company was asked to provide information about him.
Evidence later published by the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation, however, indicated that Yahoo was aware that the authorities were investigating Shi's part in the sharing of "state secrets." [Editor: my Mandarin is horrible, but I'm thinking Dui Hua, transliterated, means "correct speech".]
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-Calif., grilled Yang at the House committee hearing earlier this month about what his company has done to help Shi's family, following his jailing.
Yang apologized to Shi's family at the hearing, and soon after met personally with family members.
"After meeting with the families, it was clear to me what we had to do to make this right for them, for Yahoo and for the future," Yang said in his statement Tuesday.
End of Story
John Letzing is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco.
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