The journalist Wang Xiaoning was jailed in 2003, but his sentencing and Yahoo!'s role in it has only now come to light, according to human rights group Human Rights in China (HRIC). Xiaoning is the fourth journalist to have been jailed with the help of evidence provided by Yahoo!.
Last year Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo!, admitted that the company helped Chinese authorities to jail another reporter, arguing that it had no choice and was obliged by local law to do so.
The internet company has been attacked by press freedom campaign Reporters Without Borders for "going to any lengths to gain shares of the Chinese market".
In September, evidence provided by Yahoo! helped convict journalist Shi Tao, a writer for Chinese newspaper Dangdai Shang Bao.
Xiaoning was convicted of the charge of incitement to "subvert state power" after he emailed documents calling for multi-party elections. Chinese authorities objected to such statements by Tao as "Never forget that China is still an authoritarian dictatorship", and attacks on China's record of denying workers' trade union rights.
The court cited evidence in its verdict that included information provided by Yahoo! in Hong Kong, which confirmed his Yahoo! email address was a China-based one as well as details about his Yahoo! group.
However, the judgment did not indicate whether Yahoo! Hong Kong or Yahoo! China, which is now operated by mainland-based Alibaba.com, provided specific information regarding Wang's identity.
Sources in China told HRIC that Xiaoning suffered repeated physical abuse in detention between September 2002 and February 2004. He has since been denied appeal and told that if he appealed again he would be denied any opportunity for parole.
Yahoo! is not the only US internet firm to come under fire for co-operating with the Chinse authorities. Google has also been criticised after it agreed to allow its site to be censored in order to have access to millions of Chinese web users.
Chinese who type words such as Tibet, Taiwan, Falun Gong and Tiananmen Square into Google will come up with restricted results. Microsoft's MSN has also restricted its search results in the country.
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