Yaboo?

I'd appreciate your advice please. I have had a yahoo account for years and have always been happy enough with it. But this business in China, the ratting out the dissident, well, it troubles me.

I am considering terminating my account with Yahoo and boycotting them from here on out. Is this purely a futile gesture, or is it a futile gesture worth undertaking? What do you think?

From boingboing:

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang brushed off responsibility. At an Internet conference Sept. 10 in Hangzhou, China, Yang said Yahoo and other U.S.-based multinationals "have to comply with local law."

Or else what? They lose access, that's what, which means losing profits.

Shi Tao's attorney, Guo Guoting — who was detained, placed under house arrest and shut out of his office before his client's trial — argues that the company has a greater obligation to international law than to local law. "China is a signatory of the [U.N.] International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights," Guo told the Hong Kong independent daily Epoch Times. "Shi Tao … was legitimately practicing his profession, not committing a crime. The legal entity of Yahoo Holdings [Hong Kong] is not in China, so it is not obligated to operate within the laws of China or to cooperate with Chinese police."