Alibaba Slams Yahoo’s ‘Reckless’ Support Of Google
China’s largest e-commerce firm Alibaba Group slammed its major shareholder Yahoo Inc. on Saturday, saying Yahoo’s support of Google in its dispute with China was "reckless."
The clash between China and Google stems from Google’s pledge to stop censoring content on its Chinese language google.cn search engine. Google has said it would try to negotiate a legal unfiltered search engine, or exit the Chinese market altogether. Yahoo said on Wednesday that it was "aligned" with Google’s position.
"Alibaba Group has communicated to Yahoo! that Yahoo’s statement that it is ‘aligned’ with the position Google took last week was reckless given the lack of facts in evidence," said Alibaba in a statement released Saturday.
Yahoo said it was aligned with Google’s position that cyber attacks on private networks are troubling, and that violation of Internet user privacy must be opposed.
The remarks came one day after Google’s announcement that it might pull out of China.
A Google spokeswoman said Saturday that Chinese reports that it has already decided to shut down its google.cn Web site and had put some workers on paid leave were not true.
"It’s business as usual," she said.
The spokeswoman said she was "unaware" whether Google’s China-based staff had been denied access to codes, as some bloggers had claimed. However, the company is still in the process of scanning its systems in the aftermath of the cyberattack, she added.
Alibaba, which operates China’s largest online retailer Taobao and China’s largest e-commerce website Alibaba.com, has had a touchy relationship with Yahoo since Yahoo’s former CEO Jerry Yang left the company.
Yahoo had scrapped its search business and invested $1 billion in Alibaba Group in 2005 for a 40 percent stake.
Yahoo surprised Alibaba executives last year by selling its stake in Alibaba.com, and some believe Alibaba now wants Yahoo to sell its stake in the wider group as well.Â
But Yahoo has said it sees its now multi-billion dollar position in Alibaba as a critical investment in China.
Companies operating in China typically tread lightly on matters sensitive to the Chinese government. Some firms, such as Baidu, Sina and others, tend to self-censor without much prompting from the government.
Separately, a Reuters report on Saturday cited a source familiar with the situation as saying that Yahoo was aware it had been a target of Chinese cyber attacks before Google alerted them to the fact, but remained silent while its larger competitor went public.
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