[2008] 1 HKC
A
Shi Tao v Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data
(Administrative Appeals Board)
291
(3) giving a brief summary of the findings in the Report.
B. CORPORATE STRUCTURE OF YHHK1
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
11. YHHK is and was at all material times a Hong Kong company
incorporated under the laws of Hong Kong and a wholly-owned subsidiary
of Yahoo! Inc, a US company based in California.
12. YHHK confirmed that the information referred to in the Verdict was
disclosed to the PRC State Security Bureau (SSB) on 22 April 2004.
However, YHHK contended that it played no role in the incident.
13. The email account in question, huoyan_1989@yahoo.com.cn, was
registered with the Yahoo! China website (yahoo.com.cn). At the material
time, the Yahoo! China and Yahoo! Hong Kong (yahoo.com.hk) websites
were both owned by YHHK. However, materials provided by YHHK
indicated that these two websites were managed and operated
independently of each other. A management team in Hong Kong ran the
Yahoo! Hong Kong website, while a separate management team in Beijing
was responsible for the Yahoo! China website.
14. For the purpose of having an Internet Contents Provider (ICP)
licence for the operation of the Yahoo! website in the PRC, YHHK entered
into an Operation Agreement with a PRC entity called Peking University
Founder Group (PUFG) on 19 February 2003. On the same date, Beijing
Yahoo! Consulting and Service Co Ltd (Beijing Yahoo!), a wholly owned
PRC corporate entity of YHHK, entered into a Technical Services
Agreement with PUFG, pursuant to which Beijing Yahoo! was to provide
PUFG with technical services to facilitate the operation of the
yahoo.com.cn website.
15. Hence, prior to 24 October 2005 the Yahoo! China website was
wholly owned by YHHK but operated through PUFG and Beijing Yahoo!2
16. Moreover, YHHK explained that in relation to the disclosure of
Yahoo! China’s email user data to the SSB, it was handled by the legal
teams of that website, reporting directly to Yahoo! Inc. In other words,
YHHK’s legal team was not involved in such disclosure at all.
C. THE RELEVANT PROVISIONS
17. The relevant provisions of the Ordinance for the purpose of the
present appeal are as follows.
I
1.
YHHK attended the hearing as a person bound by the Commissioner’s decision pursuant to
s 11(1)(a) of the Administrative Appeals Board Ordinance (Cap 442).
2.
Since 24 October 2005, Alibaba.com Corporation (Alibaba) became the owner and operator of
the yahoo.com.cn website. ‘YHHK and Yahoo! Inc are shareholders who together hold about
40% of the issued shares of Alibaba.