Mr Yang, who has come under fire over the 2004 imprisonment of Chinese dissident Shi Tao, yesterday apologised to Mr Shi's mother Gao Qinsheng during his appearance before the House committee on foreign affairs.
”I personally apologise to them for what they and their families are going through,” he said. Ms Gao began to weep as Tom Lantos, the Democratic committee chairman, demanded that Mr Yang beg her forgiveness.
The Yahoo chief executive was called to testify after Mr Lantos accused the company of giving false information to Congress about Mr Shi's case.
In congressional testimony last year, the company said it had had no information about the nature of an investigation into Mr Shi before it gave Chinese authorities identifying information about the journalist's e-mail. Mr Shi was subsequently arrested and is serving a 10-year prison term.
It was later revealed that, at the time of the congressional hearing, Yahoo officials had in their possession a Chinese order that said authorities sought information in a case involving “state secrets” – a term usually used in cases involving political dissidents.
Michael Callahan, Yahoo's general counsel, apologised to the committee last week for not coming forward with the information after he learned about it.
Mr Lantos yesterday described Yahoo's actions in the case as “spineless and irresponsible” and lambasted the company for trying to sweep the transgression under the rug and failing to discipline any officials at Yahoo for providing false information to Congress.
“This was no misunderstanding,” he said. “It was inexcusable, negligent behaviour at best, and deliberately deceptive at worst.”
“Yahoo had no means, or, possibly, intent, to prevent Yahoo China from being a willing participant in political witch-hunts emanating from Beijing. Yahoo Inc had no American lawyers in Beijing,” the congressman said.
“A company of Yahoo's resources and sophistication operating in the Chinese milieu should have taken every conceivable step to prevent the automatic compliance with a request from the Chinese police apparatus,” he added.
Mr Yang's opening statement gently hit back at some criticism of Yahoo and other technology companies by pointing out Yahoo began to engage in China in the 1990s after encouragement from Democratic and Republican administrations.
Mr Yang said he believed companies like Yahoo had the power to be “disruptive or even revolutionary” in markets where access to information was restricted.
“As a company entering its teenage years now, with hundreds of millions of users, and with human stakes more challenging than ever, we remain fully committed to protecting human rights in the business world's most challenging markets,” he said
