The Internet – and Yahoo! – has a growing presence in Vietnam. By next year, thirty-five percent of the population is expected to get online – staggering when you consider Vietnam didn’t substantially embrace the Web until 2005. We entered the market a year later with a Vietnamese-language version of our homepage (vn.yahoo.com), followed by Mail, Messenger, Search, and News. We now run one of the country’s leading blogging services. And since few people own computers, we’re working with the Internet café industry through our iCafe program to improve the Internet experience for all involved.

Unfortunately, like other regions where communications are controlled, Vietnam is exploring ways to place restrictions on the Internet. The government recently issued regulations on Internet blogging that aim to limit certain online content, particularly posts considered more political in nature. Not surprisingly, these rules have been roundly criticized as an attempt to stifle internationally recognized speech. As a company committed to user safety and trust, we’ll continue to review these and any new rules to determine what effect, if any at all, they would have on our own policies.

We’ve learned tough lessons as pioneers in the emerging markets, and we’re now applying them to how we build businesses in new markets. In the case of Vietnam, we took deliberate steps when launching services there to protect our users. Our business, policy and legal advisors visited the country to assess the landscape as part of our human rights impact assessment – a process we committed to when we created Yahoo!’s Business & Human Rights Program last year. It helped us tailor our business to be consistent with our corporate human rights commitments. For example, we decided to manage and operate Yahoo!’s Vietnamese language services out of Singapore so the services would be governed by laws with stronger protections than in Vietnam today. We’re also providing further protections for our users and employees through legal structures, internal policies, user terms of service, and tailored approaches on data access and location.

We believe deeply in engagement in markets like Vietnam. It’s good business. It’s also empowering for local citizens, as they communicate, exchange ideas, and learn about the outside world in unprecedented ways. The online community is thriving in Vietnam, and we’re in a leadership position in that important and growing market. We’re proud of the business Yahoo! has built there and while we know we’ll face evolving challenges, we’re also confident in the approach we’re pursuing to protect the online rights of our users.

Doing business globally is challenging in any industry. Given the speed, scale, and dynamism of the Internet, our industry has some unique challenges. Some of those same issues in the emerging markets are also opportunities to spread enormously empowering information and communications tools and platforms to citizens hungry for access and openness. We’re a company founded on the principles of openness and user trust, and we’re not alone in our commitment to protecting and promoting these rights. We’re confident our partnership with companies, human rights groups, academics, and investors in the Global Network Initiative offers a powerful platform for collective action to promote freedom of expression and privacy online around the world, including in promising places like Vietnam.

You can read more about our global human rights initiatives here.

Michael Samway
VP & Deputy General Counsel

Photo from janello

A few weeks ago, we received a letter from Senators Durbin and Tom Coburn (R – Okla.), asking for a further update on where Yahoo! and others were in developing the code of conduct. They urged companies not to wait until the code was finalized before taking action to safeguard user privacy and freedom of expression, something we’ve been deeply committed to at Yahoo!. As we said at the hearing, we’re ready now and we’ve been working to match our actions with our words.

You can read our response to the senators here, but let me recap a few key points:

• After 18 months of intensive effort to develop a global code, we’ve reached a major step with industry counterparts, human rights advocates, academics, investors, and others. We’ve all agreed to the core components of the code, which consist of principles of freedom of expression and privacy, implementation guidelines, and a governance, accountability and learning framework. Now it’s a matter of each participant reviewing the agreement for final approval. Again, we’re ready at Yahoo! to make this initiative a reality.
• We are optimistic we will collectively launch the initiative this Fall.
• Yahoo! hasn’t been waiting for a final code to take multiple actions on the human rights front. In addition to appealing to the State Department for their support in diplomatic efforts, we have:
  1. Established a human rights fund to assist political dissidents and their families;
  2. Implemented a human rights assessment as we explore doing business challenging markets and established a dedicated business and human rights program within the company; and
  3. Founded academic fellowships at Stanford and Georgetown to advance free expression and global values.

A year and a half may seem like a long time for those tapping their feet in anticipation of an industry code of conduct. We understand. We also believe it’s important to recognize the complexity of this dynamic process. We didn’t want to draft a pledge we’d all simply sign and move on. We needed to craft something meaningful that left everyone independently accountable to their pledge to do the right thing around free expression and privacy. We also faced the natural challenges drafting principles and guidelines for businesses where the industry and technology landscape regularly and often dramatically changes and evolves. We also agreed — companies and human rights groups alike — that we needed to include room for new participants, technologies, and challenges.

We’ve all also worked carefully in crafting the principles, implementation guidelines, and accountability and learning framework to be sure this isn’t a code pointing at or strictly about China. This is much broader, as it should be. We are in agreement across companies and human rights organizations that this initiative will be global in scope. We’re also hopeful inside and outside Yahoo! that this collective human rights code of conduct will be a model initiative showing the strength of collaboration in the field of business and human rights.

Michael Samway
VP & Deputy General Counsel

I tried to convey this simple message: We believe in the power of information and in global engagement, we were an industry pioneer in international markets, we take responsibility for our actions, we’ve learned valuable lessons, and we’re taking concrete steps on our own and collectively to be leaders in the field of business and human rights. You can read my testimony here.

The following day, I presented at the U.S. Department of State on a panel on Business & Human Rights. Sitting next to three other global companies in entirely different industries, I emphasized our commitment at Yahoo! to the principles of free expression and privacy and to working collectively with technology companies and others to create industry standards to guide companies in the world’s most challenging markets. I also discussed our collaboration with the State Department through its Global Internet Freedom Taskforce and our other efforts, including Jerry’s letter earlier this year to Secretary Rice.

At the Senate hearing, Senator Tom Coburn used an expression we’ve often heard and used at Yahoo!: Information is power. We continue to believe in that simple axiom. Information is empowering to ordinary citizens across the globe. Yahoo! is built on the power of information, and we’ll continue to harness that power for good.

Michael Samway
VP & Deputy General Counsel

Today we’re announcing the launch of our Business & Human Rights Program, and through it we hope to help define ourselves as an industry leader in this important field. It’s no secret that certain governments around the world don’t live up to widely recognized standards for protecting the free expression and privacy rights of their own citizens. While the root causes of these threats clearly lie with governments, we also know corporations have important obligations in the field of human rights.

The Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Program represents another step forward in our commitment to human rights, and a number of pillars support this program:

• Executive Commitment. We’ve got it. For those of us who’ve been with Jerry in meetings on Capitol Hill, at the State Department, or with human rights activists, the long-term commitment is clear.
• Dedicated and Cross-Functional Teams. The Program will expand our core team and continue centralized leadership on global strategy, industry initiatives, business decision-making, and internal and external stakeholder engagement.
• Guiding Principles and Operational Guidelines. We’re committed to the international foundations of freedom of expression and privacy, and we’ll continue translating those principles into practical steps to be followed by our employees.
• Human Rights Touch-Point Inventory + Clearinghouse. We’ll constantly review the intersection points of our business with potential human rights issues and ensure risks are routed to the right teams.
• Human Rights Impact Assessments. We’re committed to exploring risks to freedom of expression and privacy in challenging markets, engaging with external stakeholders, and designing risk mitigation strategies.
• Internal and External Stakeholder Engagement. The single most important stakeholders are our users. We also must stay closely connected to our employees and maintain our strong relationships with industry peers, human rights groups, academics, and governments, including our own State Department.
• Accountability Framework. We also believe in designing an effective system to assess our own performance in meeting our overall goals and our operational steps relating to human rights issues.

We’re a company built on open access to information and user trust . We’ve encouraged scholarship on technology and human rights, funding two university fellowships so far. We’ve also teamed up with a noted human rights activist to create the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund. We’re deeply committed to the current collective initiative with industry peers, human rights groups, academics, and socially responsible investors to design standards to guide companies in challenging markets.

We believe companies can move forward today to integrate human rights decision-making into their business operations, and we intend to show our own leadership and commitment to freedom of expression and privacy through the creation of the Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Program.

Michael Samway
VP & Deputy General Counsel

I’ve sat with Jerry at the State Department, meeting with senior government officials, as he’s pressed for continued government assistance in advocating for the release of dissidents. Over the past two years, legal and policy executives at Yahoo! have met with NGO’s to discuss strategies for securing the release of political dissidents. We’ve also met with senior Chinese officials and asked directly for the release of Mr. Shi and Mr. Wang. We understand our responsibilities, and we take them with the utmost seriousness. We also recognize the practical limits of corporate diplomacy, especially next to the powerful advocacy tools available to governments. We believe governments have the most leverage to influence the decision-making of other governments.

The stakes – personal freedom – are high for those unfairly imprisoned and for their families. This is one reason we’ve established a Human Rights Fund to provide humanitarian and legal support for these dissidents, as well as for their families. The Fund will be administered by noted dissident Harry Wu – who spent nineteen years in a Chinese labor camp – through his Laogai Research Foundation. The Fund will also support the Foundation’s educational efforts on human rights. We also hope to stimulate new research to advance the cause of free expression and privacy globally, and we’ve established international fellowships at Stanford and Georgetown Universities to promote the pursuits of journalists from press-restrictive countries and scholars exploring the link between global values, the Internet, and communication technologies.

We’ve also engaged with industry peers, human rights groups, socially responsible investors, and academics, working to develop a broad-based response to the challenges of restrictions on free expression and privacy globally. At Yahoo!, we’re fully committed. The positive partnership — facilitated by Business for Social Responsibility and the Center for Democracy & Technology — makes us optimistic about the development of guiding principles and operational standards, for companies in our sector and eventually beyond, that will allow us to continue making profits with principle. The windows of opportunity are before us for collective action to advance industry standards and for government action to help win the freedom of dissidents imprisoned simply for expressing their views online. Jerry and all of us at Yahoo! are hopeful Secretary Rice’s leadership, diplomacy, and advocacy next week in Beijing will help secure the release of Shi Tao, Wang Xiaoning, and others in China.

Michael Samway
VP & Deputy General Counsel

I felt the energy there earlier this year while leading a discussion on Yahoo! and global values in a graduate seminar on ethics and international business at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. The students asked tough and direct (and not unsurprisingly, diplomatic) questions about Yahoo!’s application of values-based decision-making in our global business operations, showing a sophisticated understanding of technology and human rights issues.

Back on our own buzzing campus, headquarters to a company with hundreds of millions of global users and offices in nearly 25 countries, we too have been actively engaged with issues that arise at the intersection of international human rights and the Internet. I’ve blogged a few times now on Yodel Anecdotal about our involvement in the broad-based dialogue focused on creating a set of global principles and operating procedures regarding freedom of expression and privacy.

Over the past six months, while traveling back and forth to Washington, D.C. for meetings with human rights groups, for rounds on Capitol Hill, and to present at the State Department, I also met with Georgetown leaders to discuss partnership opportunities in the area of technology and global values. And now, as a further step in our engagement on business and human rights issues, we’re announcing a $1 million gift to Georgetown University to establish a Yahoo! International Values, Communications, Technology, and Global Internet Fellowship Fund.

The fund will support the education and research activities of an annual Yahoo! Fellow in Residence and two Junior Yahoo! Fellows who will study the link between international values and Internet and communication technologies. Georgetown will choose the Yahoo! Fellows from candidates in the corporate, government, academic, and civil society sectors with an interest in markets like Brazil, Russia, India, and China. We’ll remain actively involved in the work of the Yahoo! Fellows, partnering with Georgetown in seminars, research, publications, conferences, and other engagements with students, faculty, policy-makers, and the public.

This initiative will complement the Yahoo! International Journalism Fellowship we established last year through a similar gift to Stanford University’s John S. Knight Fellowships program. The Stanford fellowship focuses on journalists from press-restrictive countries, with the first fellow coming from Pakistan and next year’s fellow coming from Zimbabwe. The first Yahoo! Fellow at Georgetown will start in the fall of 2007.

Georgetown’s global reach and location in Washington, D.C., its prestigious School of Foreign Service, its reputation for international leadership, and the regular access it provides its students and faculty to legislative, judicial, and executive decision-makers, make it uniquely central in the debate on human rights and technology. We’re excited about the productive possibilities for Internet users globally offered by a Yahoo!-Georgetown partnership.

Michael Samway
VP & Deputy General Counsel

On Tuesday, I spoke on a GIFT panel on global free expression and the free flow of information. It was a special honor for me since I’d worked as a law clerk at the State Department Legal Adviser’s Office nearly 15 years earlier. Back then as a wide-eyed intern, stepping into the State Department halls I pictured myself as a character in an elaborate John le Carré international mystery. This week’s panel at the State Department was more technical Tom Clancy thriller, a state-of-the-art auditorium and an expertly moderated and sometimes provocative discussion on human rights, censorship, surveillance, encryption technology, data flows, and privacy rights.

A good-sized audience of about 80 people came to observe and participate, with many asking thoughtful and tough questions. In the crowd were technology and media companies, human rights groups, investor groups, academics, government officials, press, and concerned citizens. Despite spending nearly a year focused on this area for Yahoo!, with the diversity of participants and the passionate views on human rights, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the discussion or the audience. Friendly? Hostile? New issues? Re-packaged ones?

On the first panel, a Ph.D. from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society gave a technical view of filtering and censorship challenges globally. A former State Department official and current senior vice president at investor Calvert explained just how an effective multi-stakeholder process can work. An analyst at investor F&C expounded on the findings of a recent study on access, security, and privacy. A senior leader at BSR compared previous voluntary initiatives and showed how complex questions involving sophisticated Internet technology may require new approaches to traditional human rights challenges. The tense moment on the first panel arrived when an Amnesty International representative opened his remarks by directly accusing Yahoo! and the other companies of cooperating with repressive regimes, including handing over information on political dissidents and limiting the free flow of information.

On the second panel, I joined representatives from the Center for Democracy and Technology , Human Rights First, Google, and Microsoft, and we each raised some of the vexing questions we all wrestle with in the field of business and human rights. Partly in response to comments from the first panel, I explained that we condemn the punishment of any activity internationally recognized as free expression and that the relationship between law enforcement entities and technology companies around the world is more complex than commonly understood. Rarely, if ever, will a company know the name, identity, or occupation of an individual connected to a user ID demanded by a law enforcement agency, whether in Munich, Mexico City, or Mumbai. What we do know is we protect user privacy through rigorous compliance practices and careful adherence to law governing government demands for user information.

In response to questions on challenges companies face where the free flow of information is restricted, I discussed our belief that the presence of companies like Yahoo! in markets abroad can have a transformative effect on peoples’ lives and on local and national economies. Information is power. Access to information, especially through the Internet, has changed what people know about the world around them and about events, people, and issues that directly impact their lives day-to-day. People know more about local public health issues, environmental causes, politics, consumer choices, and job opportunities. They communicate and interact like never before with family, friends, neighbors, and people locally, regionally, and even globally with similar interests. And the Internet drives innovation across sectors, including in science, medicine, business, and journalism to name a few.

In a thoughtful Wall Street Journal piece from January 27, journalist Emily Parker noted that because of virtual assembly, or online gatherings, a democratic consciousness has developed inside places like China, despite broad limitations on free expression and the free flow of information. In short, information is empowering in both ordinary and extraordinary ways. It can be disruptive or even revolutionary. It’s the single greatest reason certain governments fear open use of the Internet and the free flow of information.

The common theme from both panels was that responding to the challenges of restrictions on free expression and privacy globally requires collective action. At Yahoo!, we’re fully committed. The more broad-based the response, the more effective and sustainable. The State Department’s engagement and support through their own complimentary global initiatives, including GIFT, reinforces our belief we’re moving in the right direction on behalf of the global community of Internet users. The positive partnership formed between companies, human rights groups, socially responsible investors, and academics — facilitated by BSR and CDT — makes us cautiously optimistic about the development of guiding principles and operational standards, for companies in our sector and eventually beyond, that will allow us to continue making profits with principle.

For all the benefits we enjoy from operating in twenty plus countries and in more than a dozen languages, managing Yahoo! on a global scale creates plenty of challenges around complex and politically charged issues like censorship and user privacy.

How do we deal with obligations to follow laws of nations where the laws themselves or their application may have consequences inconsistent with internationally recognized values and standards? Are partially censored results, with notice to users, better than no results at all in a challenging market? Should we focus our concerns on censorship of political speech? Should companies draw the line on doing business somewhere based on the type of speech a government limits? Would it be a decision based on the quantity or the quality of limitations? And using which standards and measures? Could Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provide a starting point?. Our own First Amendment is quite broad; could that be a global standard? How do companies design product approaches that balance legitimate government rights and requirements for data access with adequate protections for user privacy? Do we agree neither right should be absolute and each should live in balance with the other? Should we design an approach that works in Beijing, Paris, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Toronto, and Washington, D.C. all at once? Is that possible? How far can a company go in challenging local laws and orders? What if it puts locally-based employees at risk? These are just a few of the questions we’ve been asking ourselves recently.

Fortunately, we haven’t had to think about these questions alone. For most of the past year, we’ve been immersed in weekly meetings with top thinkers at Microsoft, Google and Vodafone — right, in some cases our fiercest competitors — to apply our collective wisdom to challenges to free expression and privacy. Early in 2006 we engaged the highly respected team at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) to facilitate our industry dialogue, and we’ve also counted closely on the academic expertise of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

We’ve looked closely at previous voluntary industry and multi-stakeholder initiatives, actively engaged individually and collectively with a wide group of international human rights groups and socially responsible investors, talked to United Nations business and human rights experts, and consulted closely with the State Department’s Global Internet Freedom Taskforce. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), which also took a leadership role in convening stakeholder discussions, is now working with BSR to co-facilitate the next phase of a multi-stakeholder dialogue.

Today, our diverse group of companies, human rights organizations, academic institutions, and socially responsible investors announced a formal commitment to creating a set of global principles and operating procedures on freedom of expression and privacy — to guide “company behavior when faced with laws, regulations, and policies that interfere with the achievement of human rights” (check out the press release here). Our goals also include creating an implementation, accountability, and governance framework as well as a forum for sharing ideas. The political principles and human issues at stake are big ones — no two ways about it – and this next phase in the multi-stakeholder dialogue requires continued leadership, integrity, and teamwork from all sides.

Yahoo! is a company built on openness, free expression, and user trust. From our humble trailer roots with a small and devoted group of followers through our teenage years as a global company with hundreds of millions of users, we’ve seen open access to information transform communities and allow entrepreneurship to flourish as well as provide citizens with more freedom in how they live, work, exchange ideas, and make choices impacting their daily lives. Information can be a powerful tool for change and progress in the hands of internet users globally.

As a broad and diverse set of players at the table today, we’re committed to harnessing the group’s collective experience and brainpower to design an approach to doing business globally that consistently guides ethical decision-making in the business world’s most challenging markets.

Michael Samway
VP & Deputy General Counsel