Technology & Innovation — October 4, 2011

Why not a Chinese-Owned Yahoo?

There are those who feel nervous about the prospect of privacy issues should Yahoo become Chinese-owned. But should Americans instead be welcoming direct investment from China?

bigthinkeditor

What’s the Latest Development?

Jack Ma, the founder and CEO at Alibaba-Taobao, the successful Chinese e-commerce company, has expressed interest in taking over a distressed Yahoo, prompting some U.S. journalists to predict privacy issues for Yahoo e-mail users, or even national security issues for the U.S. government. One critic suggested an Alibaba takeover of Yahoo would sanction the surveillance of millions of Americans.

What’s the Big Idea?

But Bill Powell says that these days the U.S. desperately needs direct investment from China that goes somewhere else other than into Treasury debt. China still has huge amounts of dollar reserves that it needs to redeploy but if the U.S. keeps someone like Jack Ma from pursuing a deal “because of specious ‘privacy’ or national security issues, then we are well and truly clueless—dumber even than the Chinese leadership these days thinks we are.”

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